Audience Post

I find audience to be very important to me as a speaker because the kind of audience you’re speaking to determines how they and also you feel about the performance. If you’re speaking to a group of Catholic elderly women about drugs, rape, prisons, and devil worshipers…you may not feel the most inviting or intriguing feeling from the audience. However, if your speaking to a group of men and women in their 20’s about college partying and date rape, you’re more likely to make an impact. The kinds of audiences I want to talk about are young, educated, and curious individuals. Some difficulties in making an impact on my chosen audience could be that we don’t share the same experiences, so it could be hard to relate, or lack of attention. When speaking to younger audiences, attention is something sometimes very difficult to attain, but given the right topic, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Speech #2

Outline:

  1. Introduce ghost bike concept
  2. Jane Kim Quote
    1. Ghost bike memorials are “an important reminder for everyone to slow down. Saving those five minutes to get to that meeting or to meet your friends isn’t worth the life of one of our neighbors and residents. It will remind our drivers and all of our users on the road to think more carefully about how we can better share our city’s infrastructure.”
  3. SF Examiner statistics
    1. “Since 2005, 40 cyclists have died as a result of traffic collisions, including four last year and two this year.”
  4. Discuss where ghost bikes come from
  5. Hoodline statistic
    1. South of Market (or SoMa) is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods for cyclists in San Francisco.
  6. Ghost bike Memorial examples
    1. Diana Sullivan
    2. Chen Jin Lai
    3. Charles Vinson
  7. Eric Mar Quote
    1. “…link to up to various struggles that are going on for a vision moving from a culture of speeding and recklessness to a culture of safety where we all can appreciate art and memorials but also make the streets safer.”

Write Out:

For this speech, I am going to be talking about Ghost bikes. At some point in your life, you’ve probably seen bikes or photos of bikes spray painted white usually on street corners with cards, flowers, or pictures around them. These are memorials for bicyclists who are killed or hit on the street. Jane Kim who represents San Francisco’s District 6 on the Board of Supervisors said, ghost bike memorials are “an important reminder for everyone to slow down. Saving those five minutes to get to that meeting or to meet your friends isn’t worth the life of one of our neighbors and residents. It will remind our drivers and all of our users on the road to think more carefully about how we can better share our city’s infrastructure.” Ghost bikes serve as reminders of tragedies that took place on an otherwise anonymous street corner and remind society of cyclists’ right to safe travel. According to an article from the SF Examiner, “Since 2005, 40 cyclists have died as a result of traffic collisions, including four last year and two this year.” This article was posted just at the end of November in 2016, so not very long ago. A large portion of the city’s ghost bikes are donated by the San Francisco Yellow Bike Project which is a non-profit group in the Tenderloin that aids their community with free and low-costing bike repairs. The organization said, “While it’s not where we would like to see our bikes, knowing a bike that would be recycled can be used as a memorial, is something we can and will support.” The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition also largely supports the placement of ghost bikes. Hoodline, a daily neighborhood news source of San Francisco, stated in an article that South of Market (or SoMa) is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods for cyclists in San Francisco. The area consists of wide streets, freeway off-ramps and higher speeds than the rest of the city. In the past two years, four cyclists have been given memorials in SoMa. Here are some examples of ghost bike memorials in San Francisco. This is a memorial for 48 year-old Diana Sullivan. She was cycling on King Street on February 9th 2013 and collided with a cement mixer truck. The bike was donated by Box Dog Bikes. This is another ghost bike for 78-year-old Chen Jin Lai who was hit and killed at the busy SoMa intersection of Bryant, Division and 11th streets. He was hit by a 27-Bryant Muni Bus. After the crash, the SF Bicycle Coalition reported on the poor design and high speeds at the intersection where the crash occurred in a blog post. Lastly here is a ghost bike for 66-year-old Charles Vinson was killed at the intersection of Folsom and 14th streets. Although he was wearing a helmet, he suffered serious head injuries after a car ran a red light. So to end, here is a quote from city supervisor Eric Mar. He said he hoped that through the work from groups like the SFBA Families for Safe Streets, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the Bicycle Advisory Committee, and others, will, “link to up to various struggles that are going on for a vision moving from a culture of speeding and recklessness to a culture of safety where we all can appreciate art and memorials but also make the streets safer.”

Sources:

http://www.sfexaminer.com/supes-affirm-support-ghost-bike-memorials/

http://hoodline.com/2015/07/mapping-soma-s-ghost-bike-memorials

http://ghostbikes.org

http://sf.streetsblog.org/2013/10/18/man-on-bike-killed-by-muni-bus-driver-at-bryant-and-division/

Comment on rehearsals: I chose again to do voice memos of my rehearsals because it feels more natural to me than video rehearsals. Through recording them, I found that messing up was okay and that it’s a part of the rehearsal and practice process.