Looking for a Great Speaker for Your Next Meeting?

So you are looking for a great speaker for a future genealogy society event? Here's a good source to consider. The Genealogical Speakers Guild Membership Directory 2005 is available from Willow Bend Books for a modest fee. Click here for the Willow Bend site. Or call them at (800) 876-6103 and tell Craig Scott, Ken sent you. Of course you could just as easily check out the Genealogical Speakers Guild site by clicking here .Book mark it! Let me suggest a few things to consider that others might not suggest to you when looking for a speaker.

Here's an example of how you can use this book and a little outside knowledge to your advantage. Donna M. Moughty (http://www.genealogicalspeakersguild.org/moughty.htm) is a wonderful speaker you've heard about. When you check your directory or the Genealogy Speakers Guild site online you discover she speaks on Irish research and you are interested. However your group is in North Carolina and you wonder if you can afford the costs. So you contact her and learn she will be in Florida for a while next spring. You negotiate with her to stop in your community on her flight home and pick up a portion of the flight costs rather than the full costs.

Another example. By studying her bio on in the GSG members directory you note Karen Wallace Steely, a dynamic young speaker from the Pacific North West has an expertise in historic family photos. Your group is looking for that knowledge in a speaker, but you are in Kansas City and she's a wet coast woman. Or is she? A closer reading indicates she's a Kansas City girl living in the NW. You call to discuss coming "home" for your conference next year. She's interested.

Karen and Donna are two of many talented speakers you need to become aware of. So check out the website, and buy the directory for fireside reading on spring evenings.

And when you call on a Genealogical Speakers Guild member to speak, be sure to tell them Ken sent you!

Your comments are welcome.