"This is where you will be speaking Sarah"
“This is where you will be speaking Sarah” said my colleague, as he held open one of the huge black doors.
In front of me was a vast arena. Raised seating like a theatre. I found out afterwards that there are one thousand two hundred seats in total. On the stage was a panel of six chairs each with its own microphone, which looked like little black matchsticks from where I was standing.
To one side of the stage was a podium with its own microphone and behind the stage, a huge screen.
“Well I wasn’t scared before but, suddenly, now I am!” I laughed, “It’s like something from Prime Minister’s Question Time!”
“Come on, we’ve got about fifteen minutes to go through it and grab a sandwich.”I didn’t feel like it would be right, given the circumstances, to mention that I was trying to stick to a wheat free diet.
It had been two weeks since I had received a telephone call asking me to do this; present the Common RAS (resource allocation system) Framework at the annual NCAS (National Children and Adult Services) conference. I was excited about being asked and felt very privileged to be trusted with such a task.
The first stage of the hard work was over. For the last nine months, 18 local authorities and 8 citizen leaders (me being one of them) had worked together on the development of the Common RAS Framework. The fact we had worked together is why I had been asked to present it. Coproduction is the key word. Local authorities have been given benchmarks by the government to meet in this area and the Department of Health were keen to show authorities how it could be done and indeed that it had been done. The development of the Common RAS Framework is an example of true coproduction.
We hurried along to the main conference exhibition hall where we weaved between stand after stand of chocolate fountains surrounded by marshmallows on sticks, free gifts of mugs, post it notes, reusable hessian shopping bags and pens galore. There was no time for us to hover or network. Eventually we found somewhere to sit and with sweating, shaking hands, I made some last minute notes on the back of a draft copy of the RAS paper.
Five minutes to go, luckily, I did not have to explain my wheat free diet or the fact my stomach had now joined my tonsils physiologically; there was no time to eat. The place was packed and the people around us all seemed to know where they were going.
We were advised to, “Take the lift that’s to left of the man with the bald head.” by a friendly conference host, who had noticed our blank expressions when we were faced with stairs, turnings, and numerous escalators.
Arriving back in the main arena, it was now spot lit and buzzing with activity. People had started to take their seats and the entire panel were seated. Our presentation slides were now visible to the world on the big screen.
I speak in public frequently; being nervous about public speaking is something other people suffer from, not me. Not until today, that is.
I kept telling myself that in about an hour, this would all be over. I needed to spend a penny. Yet I could not need to, I had just been. My face was red; my hands had a cold yet sticky feel to them. My legs were so wobbly that I considered asking to be allowed to speak from the safety of the panel; I was unsure if I could trust them to carry me, along with high heels, along to the podium, in full view of hundreds of directors.
It was difficult to make out individual faces, as the audience were in a shadow. I could feel the heat of the spot lights making my face even hotter and redder. I wanted to take my cardigan off but being forty two, I was also aware of the wobble in my upper arms, knowing that I would feel even more self conscious whilst flashing ‘bingo wings’, I decided to go with the hot flush instead.
The grey leather seat was comfortable and as I attempted to sit right back (in an effort to appear relaxed) I realised it was a swivel and a rocking chair, oh what fun I could have had, under different circumstances. My mind drifted ever- so- briefly, back to being a child; spinning my little brother around so fast on our parents’ seventies swivel chair that he could not walk straight for ages after.
I remembered a book I had read, ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ (Susan Jefferson.) I practised some of the non- attachment that Susan suggests. I repeated positive affirmations in my head; I deserve to be here, people want to hear what I have to say, I deserve to be here, people want to hear what I have to say.
With my heart rate still racing, palms still sweating, voice still wobbling, cheeks still burning.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I strained my eyes to make out the shapes of, mostly men in suits, the audience and imagined, instead of seats; long rows of white porcelain toilets, each and every one of those directors with their trousers around their ankles, loo roll in one hand. That was a leveller. I breathed in deeply and then out slowly, breathing out twice for each breath in, just like I had been taught at ante natal class twenty two years ago. My body was beginning to return to somewhere near normal. Normal for me, anyway. Until I looked down into my bag and with a hot rush of hideous realisation, I knew I had left my notes behind.