This exercise is practised on our 5-Day Discovery Public Speaking Course. It's a protocol that all executives should know; otherwise, your public speaking guests might feel less than welcome.
A vote of thanks is a short (2-3 minutes) expression of gratitude to a speaker on behalf of the audience. Therefore, it is not another speech, nor an evaluation, nor should it repeat the speaker's introduction, nor may it be prepared in detail in advance - all will become clear.
The opening sentence (which may be prepared!) should be as follows:
"Good evening, folks. On behalf of the Executive Committee, I am delighted to thank Zinedine for sharing his speech on ‘A footballing legacy for Africa...’
and the concluding sentence might be along the following lines:
"So, once again, I say that we are all most grateful to Zinedine, and I now ask the audience to express its appreciation in the usual way."
[Please note that they will applaud the speaker (Zinedine) and not the proposer of the Vote of Thanks.]
With experience, the opening and closing formula may be modified, provided the principles it embodies are not forgotten.
The person proposing A Vote of Thanks must listen carefully to the speech. The proposer should pick out two or three points that he/she found particularly interesting and, in the Vote of Thanks, refer to and respond to these. However, the proposer should NOT repeat those parts of the speech, discuss whether they agree or disagree with them, nor enter into a debate.
With practice, selecting a few valid or illuminating points and incorporating references to them into the vote of thanks becomes more straightforward. With time, the proposer will produce a presentation that resembles an excellent dessert following - and in harmony with - a fine main course.
For the moment, consider these extracts from a hypothetical vote of thanks for Zinedine Zidane and decide which (if any) you think is suitable in light of the above discussion:
Zinedine remembered standing to attention for twenty minutes in Moscow while FIFA’s President finished his caviar...
I was particularly impressed by Zinedine's tale of how his dismissal from the 2006 World Cup final was received in Algeria.
Zinedine sometimes jabbers so quickly that we have no time to think through the implications of his interesting but often complicated points.
I thoroughly commiserate with Zinedine’s views about Algeria’s elimination in the 1982 World Cup final and of the significance of beating West Germany 2-1, only for Germany and Austria to play out a contrived draw which brought an avalanche of boos from the Spanish crowd. It was indeed a day when two European nations disgraced the beautiful game. Thankfully, FIFA recognised the difficulty and changed the rules, so all teams played their final qualifying games simultaneously.
The story of Zinedine's humble origins and his missing football boots will stay with us for eternity.
It had never occurred to me that travelling overland through Africa was so slow and dangerous.
For those of us living in Europe, the thought that there are so few grass pitches in North Africa was a surprise and clearly a setback to the game’s development.
I have to say that, like everyone else present, I was utterly enraptured by his achievements at Real Madrid and his inspirational influence on footballers across the African continent.
Zinedine's tale of Eric Cantona reminded us all, I sense, of Shakespeare's reference to "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself".
If you're looking to enhance your professional skill set or want to help a colleague on the road to success, enrol in our Public Speaking Classes. This executive public speaking course helps you to polish your skills so you can present comfortably to the board and other industry professionals.
