Empowering Voices this Spring!

Spring Newsletter 2025

Hello and welcome to the fresh Spring edition. Bye bye winter blues and hello to the beauty of fresh flowers and spring chicks! Hopefully there are lots of new and exciting things happening in your life to focus your talents on. How is your voice doing? Are you being heard in the way you intend? How are those difficult conversations or lengthy presentations going? I’m always interested in hearing how your training has helped to make your speech, in any context, more successful. Feel free to message me anytime with your feedback and results.

Things are getting back to normal over here after a turbulent winter. Health has been at the forefront of our minds. It was beneficial to start my day today doing a good grounding voice and body workout with my lovely client from Greece. It reminded me how profoundly effective the practical voice work is on the full mind and body. It is important not to neglect your warm ups and preparations for the day ahead.

So many times we get caught up in the content preparations for our work/speeches that we don’t spend enough time on the self preparations of actually how we are going to show up and deliver it. In my Presentation Practice course we look at priming both areas so that the manner of your delivery is just as hot as your content. For many of us the self prep: grounding, breath, clarity, connection to audience and voice strength is rushed or assumed as a given but it often fails without sufficient thought and attention.

Sometimes we need a reminder of those valuable things we used to know. Are we applying what we have learnt? How are we actually coming across?

Empowering Voices!

Lately we’ve been working with famous speeches from iconic women like Emmeline Pankhurst, Michelle Obama and Malala Yousafzai ( I love a political speech) to establish assertiveness and build confidence. It’s always helpful to look at the greats for advice. Young girls today are lucky to have a range of books and plays about so many incredible scientists, artists, sportswomen, politicians and so on who have shaped our lives with their pioneering inventions, sheer intelligence or motivational messages. Thankfully ‘history’ is being re-written to show ‘herstory’ so we can celebrate the accomplishments of great women that were somehow not often mentioned in our history books. It’s essential for growth that we can continue to feel empowered and inspired by the achievements of others to know that this is possible for us all. It was International Women’s Day this week, a day we still need to have to acknowledge and value women as human beings to raise awareness of the gaps in rights and to celebrate progress.

Here are some book recommendations I would love every child to read boy or girl because a society that values and empowers women is a prosperous one!

And whilst talking about education here’s an extract of Malala’s speech when she won the nobel peace prize at the phenomenal age of 16!

An Inspiring Speech!

“We call upon all communities to be tolerant — to reject prejudice based on cast, creed, sect, reli-gion or gender. To ensure freedom and equality for women so that they can flourish. We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.

We call upon our sisters around the world to be brave — to embrace the strength within them-selves and realise their full potential.

Dear brothers and sisters, we want schools and education for every child's bright future. We will continue our journey to our destination of peace and education for everyone. No one can stop us. We will speak for our rights and we will bring change through our voice. We must believe in the power and the strength of our words. Our words can change the world.

Because we are all together, united for the cause of education. And if we want to achieve our goal, then let us empower ourselves with the weapon of knowledge and let us shield ourselves with unity and togetherness.

Dear brothers and sisters, we must not forget that millions of people are suffering from poverty, injustice and ignorance. We must not forget that millions of children are out of schools. We must not forget that our sisters and brothers are waiting for a bright peaceful future.

So let us wage a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism and let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons.

One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world.

Education is the only solution. Education first.”

Malala Yousafzai, December 10th 2014

Our voices are powerful tools and I hope that yours is in active use enriching the lives of the people you come into contact with in your career and homelife.

News

• We filmed a podcast for Lived Insights about Josie’s cancer journey. It was great to be back in the studio and on the mic! You can watch it here:

• Stagebox training in dialect is in full swing this term with Welsh, London and Glasgow accents in action.. The students are picking up the tricky accents really well.

• Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – this fab production that I dialect coached is happening this week at the Nottingham Arts Theatre. Come along to catch their super Sheffield accents.

• Spring offers: get 5 hours of 121 coaching for £300!

• Fundraiser for Young Lives Vs Cancer – Chloe and I will be running a 5K in aid of my daughter Josie’s diagnosis. Please donate whatever you can spare for this excellent cause. The helped us so much during our darkest days.

Tip of the season

Raise your vibrations! Vocal power is all about how resonant your voice sounds. Reducing tension and creating space in the body are top on the list of areas to achieve a richer sound. Think of your voice as a drop of water in a lake…the ripples of your vibrations can go on and on if you resonate well.

Wishing you a wonderful Spring season and even if you don’t have seasons at home enjoy being around some flowers! Breathe deeply the scent of roses!

Much gratitude and well wishes,

Marianne

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