APSS Theme 2011-12: Passion . Purpose . Progress President’s Inaugural Address

Here is President Shirley Taylor’s inaugural address at the first meeting of our new APSS year, 25 August 2011

Our theme for this coming year is Passion • Purpose • Progress. Let me tell you some of the reasons why I chose this for our theme.

Firstly, well I think it’s obvious – I’m a very passionate person! :-)

No seriously, I want to take you right back to my previous life – my previous life in Sheffield that is. I hated school, I was not at all academic, I left school at 15 years old with no qualifications. My teachers were angry that I wanted to leave. My parents were adamant that I should.

I went straight to a two-year course at a secretarial college. I loved it. By the end of the two years I had passed more external qualifications than anyone else in the course and I was awarded the title ‘Student of the Year’.

I’d found my Passion!

Straight from college I went to work as a Shorthand-Typist at Sheffield Insulations for £14 a week. I continued attending evening classes, gaining more qualifications. One year I did an evening course for the Teacher Training Diploma in Teaching Typewriting. I’m happy to say I came out top in this examination in the country,and they gave me a special cup to prove it.

I’d found another Passion!

In 1981 I did a very intensive two nights a week course to get my LCCI Private Secretary’s Diploma – a very high level qualification. During that year our teacher made all the students enter a local competition organised by the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce looking for ‘Super Secretary’. Of course we all moaned and groaned, but we all entered regardless, and we gave it our best shot.

And that’s something I always do. I give things my best shot. One of the meanings of the word Purpose is persistence and perseverance and dedication. One thing about me is that when I do make a commitment to something, I give it my 100%. That’s what I did in this competition, and after gruelling interviews, tests and projects three of us from my class ended up on stage at the final held at Romeo & Juliet’s nightclub in downtown Sheffield.

And guess what? The winner of Super Secretary 1981 was? Yes, Shirley Taylor!

I also went on to win the northern region competition, and then I came second in the national final. I wasn’t too upset about not winning the £1,000 first prize. I was happier to win the holiday for two in Paris!

So yes, I’d found a Passion, and since my disastrous schooldays, I’d found some Purpose, and I was making quite a bit of Progress.

After that competition in 1981, I’m happy to say I passed all my examinations, and I told my boss, “Thanks for paying for all my courses … I resign!” I left my job and went to study full-time at Huddersfield for my teaching qualifications in business/secretarial studies. I threw myself into this and loved every minute of it. At the end of the year, I saw a job advertised looking for a teacher to teach on LCCI Private Secretary’s Diploma courses in Singapore. Long story short, I got the job, I flew to Singapore, and my Singaporean boss wanted to send me home the very next day because she couldn’t understand my Sheffield accent.

But I persevered, I learned to speak more clearly, and slowly I started to say things like “butter” instead of “butter” and “cup” instead of “cup”. But one thing wasn’t easy at that time. I was in a staffroom with about 15 other teachers, all of them local. I was the only angmoh, and they hated me on sight! It didn’t take me long to realise that a lot of them felt very threatened by me. Well I’ve never been one for conflict, so I tried my best to make friends, and slowly I did.

However, remember we’re back in 1981 now. I was quite disturbed when I found the way all these teachers worked. They all kept everything to themselves, they all did their own thing, no-one shared any materials they created, there were no common resources, there was so much duplication of effort, but nothing was done about it. No-one was sharing!

So in comes Shirley – yes, I found another Passion, and my goodness, I had a Purpose!

I made it my business to help set up sections, to appoint one teacher as the head of each section, and to help them build up a central pool of teaching resources that everyone could share. And guess what? I made friends, because they realised I was there to help them, not to threaten them. Everyone saw how much better they could be as a teacher when they shared, and how they could progress too when we all shared. And also how much better the whole community felt when we all shared.

I spent two years in Singapore at that time, then I went to Bahrain for two years and I ended up as Head of Department at a Business College. Life was certainly different in the Middle East, and I actually found another Passion there, but that was completely different and we won’t go into that. After Bahrain I came back to Singapore, then Toronto, then back to Sheffield, and eventually I came back to Singapore in 2002 when I set up my full-time training business.

I joined APSS in 2005, and when I walked into my very first meeting I thought I’d die. I saw a room full of big shots, and I felt very intimidated. It took me a while to settle down in the group, but once I started realising that they were all just very friendly and normal people (well most of them anyway!) I felt more comfortable.

Then I started getting involved more, and I enjoyed learning from everyone, and I loved the spirit of sharing. It’s like one of the speakers said at the NSA convention last month “We are one of the rare associations in the world that actually takes care of each other.”

So yes, I loved the Spirit of Sharing. And I’d found another Passion!

This is exactly the spirit that Cavett Roberts wanted when he founded the very first speakers association in the USA. And look what happened - speakers are now sharing all over the world.

I found that the more I got involved in APSS, the more Purpose I found, and the more committed I became, and the more I Progressed as a person, and as a trainer. I have enjoyed serving on the Executive Committee for the past two years, and helping the association to Progress. And now I am honoured to beappointed as President.

As President I’m hoping to share my Passion with a lot more people. I’m hoping that you’ll all begin to share my Passion for APSS and for the speaking and training profession. I’ve already shared my Passion with a fabulous team that has taken up positions on the Executive Committee, and I’m very pleased to say everyone is very committed and passionate too.

So what’s ahead for APSS for the coming year?

One thing that we are determined to do this year is make sure we give APSS members great value. So we can promise you several Networking Evenings, as well as Professional Members’ lunches and Associate Members’ lunches. Of course it goes without saying that we are going to give you several special added-value sessions, which are of course free for members, as well as some great value monthly meetings. We are also keen to help members form themselves into Mastermind groups so we can all learn from and share with our peers.

Another main aim this year is to build up our new APSS website into a fantastic resource, and to share much more with our members and guests via our fabulous new monthly newsletter. We are also looking at getting more exposure and publicity to spread the word out there in the community about APSS, and also looking at sponsorship and advertising.

I’m very excited about helping contributors and editing our very first APSS book so we can take this forward for publication by Marshall Cavendish International in February 2012.

I believe that my responsibility as President is not just to ensure that the present is successful, but to ensure the future is successful too. So one of my main aims this year is to put APSS on a firmer foundation by helping to build up good succession planning. I have already started building up a series of procedures and checklists for everything we do as APSS and as an Exco, so that we can pass these on to next year’s leaders and hopefully make their jobs easier. After all, isn’t that the Spirit of Sharing?

With the help of the dedicated team of people who are on the Executive Committee, I feel confident that we can look forward to another great APSS year.

Let’s all of us together make it a year of Passion, Purpose and Progress.