When I first got the invitation, I thought it was a joke. A tour of the newly renovated headquarters of SpeechMakers Australia. Who would want to see that? They claimed, in what seemed to be hyperbole even for SpeechMakers, that it was an ‘unmissable experience’ and ‘very exclusive’. Only the one hundred and twenty semi-finalists competing in the national championship, which started the day after the tour,
had been asked to attend. Oh, and the volunteers. And a few Highly and Moderately Esteemed SpeechMakers, including the winners of a twenty-five-words-or-less competition they’d run in the monthly magazine. But no one else.
Head office said it would be a unique opportunity to see where the ‘magic’ happened and how SpeechMakers was brought to life. Like it was an amusement park or the birthplace of Frankenstein instead of a city-fringe office block.
And you had to pay. It cost $280. I told Keith I wouldn’t be going on the tour and he frowned, a well-worn crease appearing between his bushy white eyebrows. ‘Frances,’ he said, ‘you have to go. You’ll regret it if you don’t.’ The tour of head office was the cherry on the icing of a much-desired cake for Keith. He’d been trying to win the national championship for about a hundred years.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘if you don’t go you might be disqualified.’
‘Why would I be disqualified? They’ve invited so many people, they won’t know if one’s missing.’
Keith said they would, because he’d have to tell them. For safety reasons, he said.
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