Brenda Craig
Relaxing at home in Kamloops
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Famous Speechwriters
Some famous speechwriters include: Theodore "Ted" Sorenson, who wrote speeches for John F. Kennedy; Richard Goodwin, who wrote speeches for Lyndon B. Johnson; William Safire and Ben Stein, who wrote for Richard Nixon, as did Pat Buchanan; Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for the Reagan administration; and Judson T. Welliver, who wrote for Calvin Coolidge. Welliver is considered the first official presidential speechwriter. Alexander Hamilton is thought by some to have written speeches for George Washington.
Former Wall Street Journal editorial writer William McGurn replaced Michael Gerson recently as chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
Jason DeSanto teaches courses in speechwriting at Northwestern University, having served for more than a decade as a political speechwriter, debate strategist and communications adviser. He has written for United States Senators, members of Congress, and the Democratic National Committee. Most recently, he was a senior adviser and chief speechwriter for Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich. David Frum, the son of the late Barbara Frum, one of Canada's best and brightest broadcasters, worked as speechwriter in the George Bush Jr. Administration. David Frum is credited with the now famous phrase, "the axis of evil".
Former Wall Street Journal editorial writer William McGurn replaced Michael Gerson recently as chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
Jason DeSanto teaches courses in speechwriting at Northwestern University, having served for more than a decade as a political speechwriter, debate strategist and communications adviser. He has written for United States Senators, members of Congress, and the Democratic National Committee. Most recently, he was a senior adviser and chief speechwriter for Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich. David Frum, the son of the late Barbara Frum, one of Canada's best and brightest broadcasters, worked as speechwriter in the George Bush Jr. Administration. David Frum is credited with the now famous phrase, "the axis of evil".
Speechwriting Rules
And I would now like to CALL UPON OUR GUEST SPEAKER
By Brenda Craig
Speechwriter, journalist and editor
bacraig53@hotmail.com
You graciously accepted the invitation, and at the time it seemed like an opportunity to prove you’re at the top of your game, poised and thoughtful. Maybe you’re the president of a company, a community leader or involved in politics or the executive director of a business organization or the president of a college or university.
But now, that invitation is fast turning into a trip on the Titanic.
When you arrive at the event, you discover you’ll be last on the list of speakers. You’re sitting there listening as speaker after speaker touches on the points you planned to make. Suddenly it’s your turn and you’ve got five dangerous minutes ahead of you. The audience is tired. They have been mortally wounded by the previous gang of dull speakers and you’re about to finish them off by repeating what they have already heard.
The audience is looking up, they’re looking down, and they’re looking at the exits! If they get up and actually start to leave, you think you just might actually faint right on the spot.
If you were Tommy Douglas, one of the country’s natural born orators,
you’d know what to do. If you were Ronald Reagan, another gifted communicator, although he had some very talented speechwriters to help him when the going got tough, you would likely never have fallen into that trap.
Here are some rules of the game you can use to avoid some common
‘Podium pitfalls’.
“Know the batting order”
Knowing your place in the in the lineup makes a big difference to your game plan.
Take for example, the case of the speaker who found out at the last minute that he was the grand finale. Always ask, and in fact demand to know where you are going to be. Are you the opening act, or are you wrapping up the day.
If you are last, arm yourself with an interesting story to illustrate the points you want to cover. No one is likely to have the same story as you, and it’s the end of day, kept it short. You’ll be a beam of sunshine on a cloudy day.
“Tell Stories, Never Jokes”
Experienced speechwriters usually advise clients to avoid telling jokes. It’s very ‘risky business’ because there is an excellent chance, you will offend someone in your audience. A botched joke can stick to you for years.
What you can do is tell engaging stories. Think of employees who went the extra kilometer for the company, think about the day someone’s idea turned things around. Draw on those events that inspired you, or helped you see something more clearly and then share it with the audience. Ask your senior staff to brainstorm for interesting stories with you.
Use them to start your speech. Use them to make your speech more human and evocative and engaging. And use that story to drive home your message when you’re the last speaker of the day.
“Who am I talking to please?”
Effective speakers always know their audience. Think about who is sitting in those chairs. Do they have children; are they business people like you? What are they expecting to hear from you? What is the purpose of the meeting? Is the company on a roll, or are there some ruts in the road? Speakers who consider their audiences avoid errors of tone.
“Thanks very much, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests etc.”
We’re living in a busy contemporary world. You don’t have time, they don’t have time and it’s not necessary to greet everyone in the room before you begin to speak. Just say, thank-you. And then boot up that speech and hit enter.
“We think about 20 minutes should do it”
Twenty minutes! Twenty minutes. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered to 15,000 people and considered one of the great speeches of all time was, only two minutes long.
‘Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty…
It was so short the photographer later complained he didn’t have time to get a picture of Lincoln speaking. If they insist, that it’s 20 minutes or nothing, take nothing. Twenty minutes is too long. A speechwriter usually tells clients, a good speech takes about 1-2 hours per minute to write.
“The Message”
Premier Gordon Campbell recently became canon fodder for Vancouver columnist, Vaughn Palmer, after what he described as a particularly unfocused speech delivered to the Canadian Club in Ottawa. It was a rapid fire list of all the things the government of British Columbia was going to do. It had so many messages, the columnist said no one knew what Campbell wanted the audience to take away.
The reality of course, Campbell has an excellent story to tell. British Columbia's future has never been brigher, never been more sure. But the good news was, you couldn't, shall we say, see the 'forest for the trees'.
The problem was Campbell’s speech broke one of the fundamental rules. Stick to one or two key messages. You’re going tell your audience what you want to say, you’ll say it, tell them you said it and then say it again. You want to be completely in charge of the takeaway message.
And before I go.
Delivering a speech can be a wonderful exhilarating experience, if you’re prepared. You can really prove you are a person in charge of the moment. You can use as it call to action, a way to focus your employees, a way to influence your peers and enjoy yourself at the time. Just follow some of the fundamentals.
* * * * * * * * *
Land of the Big Thirst
Spouting Off About Water…
Brenda Craig
Published in Thompson Life Magazine
June 2007
bacraig53@hotmail.com
There’s been a lot of ‘spouting off’ about the idea of ‘pay as you spray’ mandatory residential water-metering. The nasty truth is, the flat-rate system is a contributing factor to our dubious honour as the number one water hogs of the Nation.
According the city’s Utility Director, David Duckworth we suck up “20 times the national per capita average”. On hot days, when other Canadians use 800 liters a day, we gulp down 2500 liters per capita.
There’s something quite serene about our semi-arid climate with the sage-tufted hills, even if our 270 millimeter annual rainfall (just under 11 inches) does put us in league with Alice Springs in Australia’s outback, the lower edge of the Sahara region of Africa and some areas of Nevada (think Mojave desert).
Considering we’re about 3 inches shy of official desert status, the city’s flat rate for residential water consumers has been thought of as a necessity. Providing low-cost water was a way to keep us from turning into a ‘brown town’, in other words, everyone could afford to keep the lawn green.
Unfortunately un-metered householders can be real drips, and can be frequently seen dusting off the driveway with a hose instead of broom or letting sprinklers miss their targets hour after hour after hour.
But it’s midnight at the oasis, mes cher porcs de l’eau.
Sometime around the end of June, Kamloops City Council will get a yet to be written report on the 100 households that took part in the city’s Voluntary Water-Metering Project. That report may provide council with enough ammo to give the lock-and-load order on mandatory metering. Kamloops Utilities Director David Duckworth says the report will say that “at least 50 per cent of householders saved money while the other 50 per cent paid more”.
Kamloops need to conservative water is more about avoiding costly infrastructure improvements than a shortage of water at the moment. But more importantly, it lacks fairness. As one clever observer says, it’s like a motorcycle and semi-trailer gassing up at the service station and both paying the same amount. Huh?
Utilities Director David Duckworth admits that meters could cause some ‘brown spots’ in town. Any move to mandatory metering will require public education and creative thinking. Maybe it means rebates for xeriscaping or installing underground sprinkler systems, and new developments should come with water saving elements like come with small drought resistant lawns, plants and trees and built in sprinkler systems.
I read something the other day, when I was de-welling about the greatness of water. An American president, Dwight Eisenhower, on a visit to Canada in the 1950ies, looked around and said “you (us Canadians) should remember that really great water is one of your greatest assets. But when you’ve got a lot of it, you don’t think about it.”
He must have been talking about Kamloops. My, the hills are green.
Brenda Craig is a writer and broadcaster, turned speechwriter and media consultant. She now lives and works in magnificent Kamloops, British Columbia.
http://www.thespeechwriter-canada.com/
Brenda Craig
Published in Thompson Life Magazine
June 2007
bacraig53@hotmail.com
There’s been a lot of ‘spouting off’ about the idea of ‘pay as you spray’ mandatory residential water-metering. The nasty truth is, the flat-rate system is a contributing factor to our dubious honour as the number one water hogs of the Nation.
According the city’s Utility Director, David Duckworth we suck up “20 times the national per capita average”. On hot days, when other Canadians use 800 liters a day, we gulp down 2500 liters per capita.
There’s something quite serene about our semi-arid climate with the sage-tufted hills, even if our 270 millimeter annual rainfall (just under 11 inches) does put us in league with Alice Springs in Australia’s outback, the lower edge of the Sahara region of Africa and some areas of Nevada (think Mojave desert).
Considering we’re about 3 inches shy of official desert status, the city’s flat rate for residential water consumers has been thought of as a necessity. Providing low-cost water was a way to keep us from turning into a ‘brown town’, in other words, everyone could afford to keep the lawn green.
Unfortunately un-metered householders can be real drips, and can be frequently seen dusting off the driveway with a hose instead of broom or letting sprinklers miss their targets hour after hour after hour.
But it’s midnight at the oasis, mes cher porcs de l’eau.
Sometime around the end of June, Kamloops City Council will get a yet to be written report on the 100 households that took part in the city’s Voluntary Water-Metering Project. That report may provide council with enough ammo to give the lock-and-load order on mandatory metering. Kamloops Utilities Director David Duckworth says the report will say that “at least 50 per cent of householders saved money while the other 50 per cent paid more”.
Kamloops need to conservative water is more about avoiding costly infrastructure improvements than a shortage of water at the moment. But more importantly, it lacks fairness. As one clever observer says, it’s like a motorcycle and semi-trailer gassing up at the service station and both paying the same amount. Huh?
Utilities Director David Duckworth admits that meters could cause some ‘brown spots’ in town. Any move to mandatory metering will require public education and creative thinking. Maybe it means rebates for xeriscaping or installing underground sprinkler systems, and new developments should come with water saving elements like come with small drought resistant lawns, plants and trees and built in sprinkler systems.
I read something the other day, when I was de-welling about the greatness of water. An American president, Dwight Eisenhower, on a visit to Canada in the 1950ies, looked around and said “you (us Canadians) should remember that really great water is one of your greatest assets. But when you’ve got a lot of it, you don’t think about it.”
He must have been talking about Kamloops. My, the hills are green.
Brenda Craig is a writer and broadcaster, turned speechwriter and media consultant. She now lives and works in magnificent Kamloops, British Columbia.
http://www.thespeechwriter-canada.com/
Kamloops Sex Trade
The True Story of Tranquille Road …
By Brenda Craig
For Thompson Life Magazine Summer 2007
In the alley behind the barbershop, two women are dragging on smokes as they take a rest from their sex-for-dope lives in the shade of a leafy tree, while a couple of skinny guys in baseball caps and sunglasses are dealing drugs behind a dumpster. Down one of the side streets there’s a young man on the sly, checking for unlocked doors into a boarded up office building.
Further on I meet Jane (not her real name), a 34-year-old sex-trade worker hanging out behind a rundown old motel called the Royal Apartments, but the locals call it “Mutantville” because it has a history as a giant flophouse for druggies, sex-trade workers and whoever needs a cheap place to live.
Her steely blue eyes look tired and sad. She’s wearing a red sleeveless T-shirt and blue jeans; a crack pipe — her most valuable possession — sits on the ground beside her. Yes, she’ll talk to a reporter for a minute, she says.
How did Jane get into the sex trade? “Well, I just got mixed up with the wrong guy in Kelowna. Started using cocaine. And now I am addicted to four or five different drugs,” she says but adds she doesn’t do crystal meth, “It puts holes in your brain.”
Jane has a $600 a day drug habit, which she supports with money she makes as a sex-trade worker.
“It’s not hard physically,” she says. “It’s mentally hard. You’re up one minute feeling like a queen and then in the morning you feel bad, that’s the hard part.”
Jane grew up in Kamloops and has a daughter who lives with her family. She describes them as being Christian and hopeful that she gets straightened out.
But in the meantime, Jane has nothing to do with them or her daughter.
She knew the girls that were arrested in the June busts, but wasn’t among them. “I was out of town for two days. Can’t get me, I just keep moving,” she chuckles.
Jane has tried to kick her habit, she just completed 20 days in the House of Ruth, a women’s shelter on Maple Street that provides counselling and temporary housing. It is one of the few places she can go for help with her addictions.
Unfortunately, the road to change is a long one fraught with ups and downs. “I knew I was gonna relapse,” she says “but there was nothing to help me.”
Not so Tranquille Road
It’s ironic that a road named Tranquille is embroiled in a bitter turf battle between the people who live and own business there, and the sex-trade workers and drug dealers who live on and work the streets.
Residents complain about crime and prostitutes turning tricks in their yards, while frustrated shop owners blame prostitutes, addicts, homeless people and people with mental health issues for scaring away customers.
A neighbourhood watch group regularly patrols the streets trying to chase away johns that troll for dangerous delights. On the flip side, outreach workers are out there offering support to marginalized persons by assisting them in finding affordable housing, helping sex-trade workers get off the street and possibly reconnect with family, and helping people develop skills so they can find jobs.
In response to complaints from city residents and business owners the RCMP has initiated red zones to try to remove the “undesirable” elements from this North Shore neighbourhood and downtown Kamloops. A red zone is an arbitrary boundary that gives the courts power to tell people where they can and cannot go.
And despite the highly publicized two-day crackdown by RCMP on prostitution in the neighbourhood in early June (that resulted in street prostitutes being arrested and ordered to stay away), Kamloops’ infamous sex-trade area on the city’s North Shore is still humming along.
Tranquille Busted
In May the Kamloops RCMP identified prostitution and drugs as part of their crime-reduction mandate. They started with a crackdown on sex-trade workers and followed that up with two additional undercover operations to bust drug dealers and johns.
In the first week of June the RCMP set up a two-day undercover sting operation targeted at sex-trade workers in the city’s two red zones (North Shore and downtown). “The operation took 10 hours to plan and then another 10 hours to arrest 17 prostitutes,” says Insp. Yves Lacasse.
The crackdown made homeowners and business people feel better. One restaurant owner “came over and he thanked me. He hugged me in fact. And another customer came and shook my hand,” says the inspector who makes a point of patronizing local area businesses on the North Shore.
But Lacasse is a realist. He admits that despite the arrests, and despite an order that those arrested not go anywhere within what is now called the red zones, within days, some of the women arrested were back on the street, working again.
Who’s Neighbourhood is it?
“Is it the taxpayers’ neighbourhood or is it the junkies neighbourhood?” asks Peter Mutrie from the North Shore Business Improvement Association (NSBIA). “The taxpayers are taking it back!”
Three years ago, Mutrie and the NSBIA started hammering away, trying to create a better environment on the North Shore and rebuild the community.
“Starbucks turned up their nose at me at a convention four years ago, now they have a little kiosk over at Safeway,” says Mutrie. From his perspective the sex trade and everything that goes with it is gouging the life out of a potentially vibrant neighbourhood.
The City of Kamloops has a plan to create a market village in the Tranquille area using the latest in urban design to build streets that encourage people to be there. Mutrie and the NSBIA are working with business owners to brighten up properties in the area and have hired the very people that some folks want to eject to work on landscaping and painting projects.
People that need a hand have signed on to help spruce up the neighbourhood in two separate programs: the Social Enterprise Program, for landscaping, and the
Job Creation Partnership, for painting.
The Social Enterprise Program is organized by the community development committee of the NSBIA together with the ASK Wellness Centre. The project is aimed at building a sense of community by bringing together business and property owners, agency workers and neighbours in an effort to beautify prominent corners along Tranquille. Both Service Canada and the City of Kamloops are helping with funding, and business owners are paying for materials. Ten people have come forward to spruce up the neighbourhood.
The Job Creation Partnership is a Federal program under which the NSBIA applied for a four-person crew to paint six buildings to create an interesting visual change along Tranquille. Eligible persons are those on an unemployment insurance claim. The NSBIA provides project development and admin while building owners ante up funding for materials.
Both projects are aimed to improve the area’s appearance and build community relationships as well as community pride. They also build a business case for the merchants along the affected strip as consumers, residents and business owners find the area becoming more appealing.
Homeowner Deserts the Hood
“One man complained about sex acts happening on the church steps. We don’t want this (area) to become like East Hastings Street, in Vancouver,” says Insp. Lacasse. “This is not acceptable behaviour in this community. Anybody’s community.”
“You need to bust the johns and you need to give the prostitutes help,” says former Tamarack Avenue resident Robert Lee from his new home in Logan Lake. After watching the prostitution and drug problems in the area get worse and worse every year, Lee finally gave up and sold his house in June.
“It was quite the sight” on Tranquille Road, says Lee. “All the time you could literally see drug users and prostitutes walking across the street, waving, trying to ask people for dates and stuff.”
Although he liked the street where his family lived, he didn’t like the sight of prostitutes along Clapperton and Tranquille Road, on his twice-daily trip to drop-off and pickup his kids at school. “It was just a little too much,” he says.
She’s Not a Criminal
The RCMP round up of prostitutes has been both praised and disparaged, but everyone agrees some of the women are in desperate need of help.
Natilia James, 19, suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and has a mental age of about five reported the Kamloops Daily News (June 14, 2007) on the court proceedings that followed her June arrest with 16 other sex-trade workers. “When the time came to impose a sentence, (Judge Stella) Frame stopped speaking, as if momentarily lost for words, as if suddenly overwhelmed by the circumstances of an offender without much hope. Her hand came to her mouth, then to her eyes as she broke into tears. She left the bench, saying she needed a break,” wrote Robert Koopmans.
Bob Hughes, executive director of the ASK Wellness Center, says, “She (Natilia James) represents why we need something done. This is unacceptable. She is barely able to function in society. She doesn’t deserve to be in jail. She is not a criminal. She is a social disaster!”
The ASK Wellness Centre provides support for persons with HIV and hepatitis C, and to the people in the community who are marginalized: sex-trade workers, people with mental health problems, drug addicts and homeless people.
The window in Hughes’ office overlooks Tranquille Road. With a $750,000 a year budget his staff of outreach workers is in contact with most of the road’s marginalized, doing everything from needle exchange to finding food, shelter and health care.
Kamloops has become a big city with big city problems. According to the RCMP, the city is home to 55 known sex-trade workers. But depending on the time of year this number can rise as high as 80 to 90 as prostitutes from elsewhere arrive, work the streets for a while and then move on.
On one particular day, says Hughes, an outreach worker picked up 50 needles in the alley, went back three hours later and picked up 50 more. But he doesn’t think rounding up prostitutes and throwing them in jail solves the problems of the women themselves, or the community as a whole.
“Women who are picked up as sex-trade workers — should they be pushed through the criminal justice system or a health-care system?” asks Hughes. “Well I would believe, based on my knowledge of this community, that people are in favour of assistance and help.”
New Hope
Arjun Singh, an energetic, Kamloops city councilor is talking so fast he’s out of breath. “We don’t have enough social housing, we have wait lists. We don’t have enough detox opportunities.”
He’s part of a group looking at the North Shore Improvement Plan and the recent debate of sex trade in the area and says, “We are at a crossroads. We have ladies on the street who don’t want to be there, defiling themselves, and it’s affecting our community.”
But getting help to sex-trade workers and others with drug addictions is a complex task. “People’s initial need is for safety and some supportive place to live,” says Carol Savage, manager of Addiction and Residential Services for Interior Health.
When it comes to dealing with addiction problems Savage operates on the housing first idea and right now she says “its bleak.... Landlords can have pretty high standards in what they will accept in their lower rent housing, so the people who are really struggling, who are difficult, who go in and out doing drug runs, they are having a really hard time right now.”
The rental housing vacancy rate in Kamloops was 0.5 per cent in April 2007 according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Rental Market Statistics Spring 2007 report, and the average rental rate for a bachelor suite was $513.
Savage is part of the Kamloops Initiative Project, which involves BC Housing, social agencies, the RCMP, Interior Health, the NSBIA and others working to come up with a plan to help both the community and the sex-trade workers and other marginalized groups.
The John Howard Society is building Georgian Court, a new low cost housing project on Fortune Drive. Construction started July 23 of this year and the building is expected to be ready for tenants Aug. 15, 2008. Of the $7.9 million budget, the John Howard Society contributed $870,000. Georgian Court is a 48-unit complex made up of one-bedroom suites. Ten of the apartments will be fully furnished by the society.
In addition to this complex, the society owns five other buildings and is currently putting together two more building proposals for housing in Kamloops.
Including Georgian Court the society owns and manages 186 apartments. It has become the largest non-profit housing provider in the city. It accommodates low-income single individuals, seniors and low-income families. Georgian Court will be a transition-housing complex where people can live for up to two years. In the future, the society hopes to build a 50-unit, one-bedroom apartment complex that will house the individuals who move through Georgian Court, says Dawn Hrycun, CEO of the John Howard Society Thompson Region.
The House of Ruth has received funding to expand its services and will build eight new apartments for women and children at its Maple Street location. The project will also include a new 10-bed emergency shelter, which will accommodate more women and will reach out to street level women who are homeless, says Tim Larose, executive director of New Life Mission, which operates the facility.
With $1.8 million loaned from the province along with $180,000 in annual operating funding, the mission will house women recovering from drug and alcohol problems for up to two years while they learn life, job and parenting skills. The facility is intended to fill a void in housing that currently does not allow for long-term recovery. When complete, the new building will bring the inventory of beds from 18 to 24 as well as the eight two-bedroom apartments for women and children.
“I’m not saying things are perfect,” says Hughes “but I have never felt the sense of optimism around what the government and community is prepared to do to help these marginalized people.”
One of the big issues, apart from housing, is a way to connect sex-trade workers with the help they need says Hughes. “We want a regular sex-trade workers addictions program. We want to be able to have housing available, access to medical treatment, help them get income assistance, peer support, to reconnect with family, and say we care, not by making you go to jail, but make sure you get some help.”
It took old Tranquille Road a long time to get so far down. It could take a while to see real improvement. But when is finally comes together, “it will be a win for everyone in the community,” says Singh.
And the NSBIA’s Peter Mutrie, who has carried the torch for the community, believes that in three years Tranquille Road will have a very different tone.
Unsolved Murders
There have been three unsolved murders of sex-trade workers in Kamloops since 2003.
Denise Heather Hamill, age 31, was found in the Thompson River on Aug. 1, 2003. It took several days for the RCMP to identify the victim. The local media assisted by showing jewelry from the victim, which helped to identify her. She is believed to have been murdered elsewhere and her body dumped into the river by the killer. She was a sex-trade worker who was known to police. Hamill’s mother says her daughter was a happy go-lucky person as reported in the Kamloops Daily News (Aug. 16, 2003).
Shana Labatte, age 30, was found near the beach at Weyerhaeuser on March 23, 2004. She is believed to have been murdered elsewhere and her body dumped where it was found. The mother of two was a sex-trade worker and known to police. She was addicted to drugs and separated from her children, but missed them terribly and wanted to straighten her life out, according to a report in the Kamloops Daily News (Oct. 28, 2004).
The badly beaten body of Sherri Lee Hiltz, age 44, was found in a vacant lot on Surrey Avenue on April 8, 2005. She was a sex-trade worker and was known to police. A mother and recovering addict, Hiltz once wrote a letter to the Kamloops Daily News (appeared Apr. 28, 2000) after an incident in a dentist’s office to remind people “they shouldn’t be so quick to judge others.”
Anyone with information on any of the murders is urged to call Kamloops RCMP at 828.3000 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS(8477).
Red Zone Arrests
Results of the Kamloops RCMP mandate to reduce drugs and prostitution this summer in the city’s two red zones (North Shore and downtown):
17 sex-trade workers arrested during two-day undercover sting operation first week in June
38 people arrested during two-week undercover operation targeting street dealers in early July
22 johns arrested during two-day undercover sting operation in late July
By Brenda Craig
For Thompson Life Magazine Summer 2007
In the alley behind the barbershop, two women are dragging on smokes as they take a rest from their sex-for-dope lives in the shade of a leafy tree, while a couple of skinny guys in baseball caps and sunglasses are dealing drugs behind a dumpster. Down one of the side streets there’s a young man on the sly, checking for unlocked doors into a boarded up office building.
Further on I meet Jane (not her real name), a 34-year-old sex-trade worker hanging out behind a rundown old motel called the Royal Apartments, but the locals call it “Mutantville” because it has a history as a giant flophouse for druggies, sex-trade workers and whoever needs a cheap place to live.
Her steely blue eyes look tired and sad. She’s wearing a red sleeveless T-shirt and blue jeans; a crack pipe — her most valuable possession — sits on the ground beside her. Yes, she’ll talk to a reporter for a minute, she says.
How did Jane get into the sex trade? “Well, I just got mixed up with the wrong guy in Kelowna. Started using cocaine. And now I am addicted to four or five different drugs,” she says but adds she doesn’t do crystal meth, “It puts holes in your brain.”
Jane has a $600 a day drug habit, which she supports with money she makes as a sex-trade worker.
“It’s not hard physically,” she says. “It’s mentally hard. You’re up one minute feeling like a queen and then in the morning you feel bad, that’s the hard part.”
Jane grew up in Kamloops and has a daughter who lives with her family. She describes them as being Christian and hopeful that she gets straightened out.
But in the meantime, Jane has nothing to do with them or her daughter.
She knew the girls that were arrested in the June busts, but wasn’t among them. “I was out of town for two days. Can’t get me, I just keep moving,” she chuckles.
Jane has tried to kick her habit, she just completed 20 days in the House of Ruth, a women’s shelter on Maple Street that provides counselling and temporary housing. It is one of the few places she can go for help with her addictions.
Unfortunately, the road to change is a long one fraught with ups and downs. “I knew I was gonna relapse,” she says “but there was nothing to help me.”
Not so Tranquille Road
It’s ironic that a road named Tranquille is embroiled in a bitter turf battle between the people who live and own business there, and the sex-trade workers and drug dealers who live on and work the streets.
Residents complain about crime and prostitutes turning tricks in their yards, while frustrated shop owners blame prostitutes, addicts, homeless people and people with mental health issues for scaring away customers.
A neighbourhood watch group regularly patrols the streets trying to chase away johns that troll for dangerous delights. On the flip side, outreach workers are out there offering support to marginalized persons by assisting them in finding affordable housing, helping sex-trade workers get off the street and possibly reconnect with family, and helping people develop skills so they can find jobs.
In response to complaints from city residents and business owners the RCMP has initiated red zones to try to remove the “undesirable” elements from this North Shore neighbourhood and downtown Kamloops. A red zone is an arbitrary boundary that gives the courts power to tell people where they can and cannot go.
And despite the highly publicized two-day crackdown by RCMP on prostitution in the neighbourhood in early June (that resulted in street prostitutes being arrested and ordered to stay away), Kamloops’ infamous sex-trade area on the city’s North Shore is still humming along.
Tranquille Busted
In May the Kamloops RCMP identified prostitution and drugs as part of their crime-reduction mandate. They started with a crackdown on sex-trade workers and followed that up with two additional undercover operations to bust drug dealers and johns.
In the first week of June the RCMP set up a two-day undercover sting operation targeted at sex-trade workers in the city’s two red zones (North Shore and downtown). “The operation took 10 hours to plan and then another 10 hours to arrest 17 prostitutes,” says Insp. Yves Lacasse.
The crackdown made homeowners and business people feel better. One restaurant owner “came over and he thanked me. He hugged me in fact. And another customer came and shook my hand,” says the inspector who makes a point of patronizing local area businesses on the North Shore.
But Lacasse is a realist. He admits that despite the arrests, and despite an order that those arrested not go anywhere within what is now called the red zones, within days, some of the women arrested were back on the street, working again.
Who’s Neighbourhood is it?
“Is it the taxpayers’ neighbourhood or is it the junkies neighbourhood?” asks Peter Mutrie from the North Shore Business Improvement Association (NSBIA). “The taxpayers are taking it back!”
Three years ago, Mutrie and the NSBIA started hammering away, trying to create a better environment on the North Shore and rebuild the community.
“Starbucks turned up their nose at me at a convention four years ago, now they have a little kiosk over at Safeway,” says Mutrie. From his perspective the sex trade and everything that goes with it is gouging the life out of a potentially vibrant neighbourhood.
The City of Kamloops has a plan to create a market village in the Tranquille area using the latest in urban design to build streets that encourage people to be there. Mutrie and the NSBIA are working with business owners to brighten up properties in the area and have hired the very people that some folks want to eject to work on landscaping and painting projects.
People that need a hand have signed on to help spruce up the neighbourhood in two separate programs: the Social Enterprise Program, for landscaping, and the
Job Creation Partnership, for painting.
The Social Enterprise Program is organized by the community development committee of the NSBIA together with the ASK Wellness Centre. The project is aimed at building a sense of community by bringing together business and property owners, agency workers and neighbours in an effort to beautify prominent corners along Tranquille. Both Service Canada and the City of Kamloops are helping with funding, and business owners are paying for materials. Ten people have come forward to spruce up the neighbourhood.
The Job Creation Partnership is a Federal program under which the NSBIA applied for a four-person crew to paint six buildings to create an interesting visual change along Tranquille. Eligible persons are those on an unemployment insurance claim. The NSBIA provides project development and admin while building owners ante up funding for materials.
Both projects are aimed to improve the area’s appearance and build community relationships as well as community pride. They also build a business case for the merchants along the affected strip as consumers, residents and business owners find the area becoming more appealing.
Homeowner Deserts the Hood
“One man complained about sex acts happening on the church steps. We don’t want this (area) to become like East Hastings Street, in Vancouver,” says Insp. Lacasse. “This is not acceptable behaviour in this community. Anybody’s community.”
“You need to bust the johns and you need to give the prostitutes help,” says former Tamarack Avenue resident Robert Lee from his new home in Logan Lake. After watching the prostitution and drug problems in the area get worse and worse every year, Lee finally gave up and sold his house in June.
“It was quite the sight” on Tranquille Road, says Lee. “All the time you could literally see drug users and prostitutes walking across the street, waving, trying to ask people for dates and stuff.”
Although he liked the street where his family lived, he didn’t like the sight of prostitutes along Clapperton and Tranquille Road, on his twice-daily trip to drop-off and pickup his kids at school. “It was just a little too much,” he says.
She’s Not a Criminal
The RCMP round up of prostitutes has been both praised and disparaged, but everyone agrees some of the women are in desperate need of help.
Natilia James, 19, suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and has a mental age of about five reported the Kamloops Daily News (June 14, 2007) on the court proceedings that followed her June arrest with 16 other sex-trade workers. “When the time came to impose a sentence, (Judge Stella) Frame stopped speaking, as if momentarily lost for words, as if suddenly overwhelmed by the circumstances of an offender without much hope. Her hand came to her mouth, then to her eyes as she broke into tears. She left the bench, saying she needed a break,” wrote Robert Koopmans.
Bob Hughes, executive director of the ASK Wellness Center, says, “She (Natilia James) represents why we need something done. This is unacceptable. She is barely able to function in society. She doesn’t deserve to be in jail. She is not a criminal. She is a social disaster!”
The ASK Wellness Centre provides support for persons with HIV and hepatitis C, and to the people in the community who are marginalized: sex-trade workers, people with mental health problems, drug addicts and homeless people.
The window in Hughes’ office overlooks Tranquille Road. With a $750,000 a year budget his staff of outreach workers is in contact with most of the road’s marginalized, doing everything from needle exchange to finding food, shelter and health care.
Kamloops has become a big city with big city problems. According to the RCMP, the city is home to 55 known sex-trade workers. But depending on the time of year this number can rise as high as 80 to 90 as prostitutes from elsewhere arrive, work the streets for a while and then move on.
On one particular day, says Hughes, an outreach worker picked up 50 needles in the alley, went back three hours later and picked up 50 more. But he doesn’t think rounding up prostitutes and throwing them in jail solves the problems of the women themselves, or the community as a whole.
“Women who are picked up as sex-trade workers — should they be pushed through the criminal justice system or a health-care system?” asks Hughes. “Well I would believe, based on my knowledge of this community, that people are in favour of assistance and help.”
New Hope
Arjun Singh, an energetic, Kamloops city councilor is talking so fast he’s out of breath. “We don’t have enough social housing, we have wait lists. We don’t have enough detox opportunities.”
He’s part of a group looking at the North Shore Improvement Plan and the recent debate of sex trade in the area and says, “We are at a crossroads. We have ladies on the street who don’t want to be there, defiling themselves, and it’s affecting our community.”
But getting help to sex-trade workers and others with drug addictions is a complex task. “People’s initial need is for safety and some supportive place to live,” says Carol Savage, manager of Addiction and Residential Services for Interior Health.
When it comes to dealing with addiction problems Savage operates on the housing first idea and right now she says “its bleak.... Landlords can have pretty high standards in what they will accept in their lower rent housing, so the people who are really struggling, who are difficult, who go in and out doing drug runs, they are having a really hard time right now.”
The rental housing vacancy rate in Kamloops was 0.5 per cent in April 2007 according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Rental Market Statistics Spring 2007 report, and the average rental rate for a bachelor suite was $513.
Savage is part of the Kamloops Initiative Project, which involves BC Housing, social agencies, the RCMP, Interior Health, the NSBIA and others working to come up with a plan to help both the community and the sex-trade workers and other marginalized groups.
The John Howard Society is building Georgian Court, a new low cost housing project on Fortune Drive. Construction started July 23 of this year and the building is expected to be ready for tenants Aug. 15, 2008. Of the $7.9 million budget, the John Howard Society contributed $870,000. Georgian Court is a 48-unit complex made up of one-bedroom suites. Ten of the apartments will be fully furnished by the society.
In addition to this complex, the society owns five other buildings and is currently putting together two more building proposals for housing in Kamloops.
Including Georgian Court the society owns and manages 186 apartments. It has become the largest non-profit housing provider in the city. It accommodates low-income single individuals, seniors and low-income families. Georgian Court will be a transition-housing complex where people can live for up to two years. In the future, the society hopes to build a 50-unit, one-bedroom apartment complex that will house the individuals who move through Georgian Court, says Dawn Hrycun, CEO of the John Howard Society Thompson Region.
The House of Ruth has received funding to expand its services and will build eight new apartments for women and children at its Maple Street location. The project will also include a new 10-bed emergency shelter, which will accommodate more women and will reach out to street level women who are homeless, says Tim Larose, executive director of New Life Mission, which operates the facility.
With $1.8 million loaned from the province along with $180,000 in annual operating funding, the mission will house women recovering from drug and alcohol problems for up to two years while they learn life, job and parenting skills. The facility is intended to fill a void in housing that currently does not allow for long-term recovery. When complete, the new building will bring the inventory of beds from 18 to 24 as well as the eight two-bedroom apartments for women and children.
“I’m not saying things are perfect,” says Hughes “but I have never felt the sense of optimism around what the government and community is prepared to do to help these marginalized people.”
One of the big issues, apart from housing, is a way to connect sex-trade workers with the help they need says Hughes. “We want a regular sex-trade workers addictions program. We want to be able to have housing available, access to medical treatment, help them get income assistance, peer support, to reconnect with family, and say we care, not by making you go to jail, but make sure you get some help.”
It took old Tranquille Road a long time to get so far down. It could take a while to see real improvement. But when is finally comes together, “it will be a win for everyone in the community,” says Singh.
And the NSBIA’s Peter Mutrie, who has carried the torch for the community, believes that in three years Tranquille Road will have a very different tone.
Unsolved Murders
There have been three unsolved murders of sex-trade workers in Kamloops since 2003.
Denise Heather Hamill, age 31, was found in the Thompson River on Aug. 1, 2003. It took several days for the RCMP to identify the victim. The local media assisted by showing jewelry from the victim, which helped to identify her. She is believed to have been murdered elsewhere and her body dumped into the river by the killer. She was a sex-trade worker who was known to police. Hamill’s mother says her daughter was a happy go-lucky person as reported in the Kamloops Daily News (Aug. 16, 2003).
Shana Labatte, age 30, was found near the beach at Weyerhaeuser on March 23, 2004. She is believed to have been murdered elsewhere and her body dumped where it was found. The mother of two was a sex-trade worker and known to police. She was addicted to drugs and separated from her children, but missed them terribly and wanted to straighten her life out, according to a report in the Kamloops Daily News (Oct. 28, 2004).
The badly beaten body of Sherri Lee Hiltz, age 44, was found in a vacant lot on Surrey Avenue on April 8, 2005. She was a sex-trade worker and was known to police. A mother and recovering addict, Hiltz once wrote a letter to the Kamloops Daily News (appeared Apr. 28, 2000) after an incident in a dentist’s office to remind people “they shouldn’t be so quick to judge others.”
Anyone with information on any of the murders is urged to call Kamloops RCMP at 828.3000 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS(8477).
Red Zone Arrests
Results of the Kamloops RCMP mandate to reduce drugs and prostitution this summer in the city’s two red zones (North Shore and downtown):
17 sex-trade workers arrested during two-day undercover sting operation first week in June
38 people arrested during two-week undercover operation targeting street dealers in early July
22 johns arrested during two-day undercover sting operation in late July
The Mean Business
Table for How Many?
By Brenda Craig
Published in the Kamloops Business Magazine May 2008
The chef and owner of Bistro 326, Ryan Clark is talking fast, very fast. He’s on his flip phone and there’s a food supplier with him right now in the restaurant. He’s placing his order for the next week and he’s interviewing for wait staff and chefs later in the day and he’s got catering job for group Rocky Mountaineer tourists in the evening, but he can make some around 11 am to talk. It's only nine in the morning and this guy is zooming.
“I’m 29 and I’ve been in the restaurant business since I was 14, my wife and I have twins at home, another baby on the way and a dog and we’re renovating at home” says Ryan Clark. He’s got dark spiked hair and looks pretty cool in his back chef’s jacket, black trousers and black rubber shoes.
He leans forward, sitting very secure on a leather parson’s chair, his arms resting on one of the restaurant’s marble top tables. “This used to be a schnitzel house” he says “but we got a good deal on the lease and it’s got really big kitchen that any chef would love to have” he says.
And it has definitely been ‘de-schnitzeled’ since Ryan and his wife Brook took over. Giant framed mirrors hang on the modern sea foam coloured walls and a dozen or so sixties retro style lights give the room a bit of mood. In word, it’s kind of hip. It’s not Yorkville, but it definitely has style.
“We started with four staff and now we have 16” and Clark says
“I haven’t had a paycheck in 4 years, but my wife’s an accountant so
she makes everything work.”
Clark’s Bistro 326 on Kamloops Victoria Street is now in its 3rd year. Most restaurateurs are pounded into steak tartar before the first 12 months so by industry standards, the Ryans have cooked up a minor miracle.
If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Kitchen
It is easy to get burned badly in the restaurant business according to
Leonard Nakonechny from The British Columbia Restaurant & Food Services Association. “It’s a mean world” he says with heavy emphasis on the ‘e’ sound in the word mean.
Nakonechny runs a sales and marketing business in Vancouver, but he grew up in Kamloops, worked at Chapters View Point Restaurant as teenager and has been involved in restaurants one or another for the last twenty years. “The general rule is” he says “if you’re in business after five years, you’ve made it, before that it is a staggering amount that goes under.”
The BCRFA represents about a third British Columbia’s 11,000
restaurant owners, everything from cafes to fine dining. According its statistics, about 8 out 10 restaurants go flat as pancake before the can
get established.
“It is amazing, how many people don’t have a marketing plan, or a business plan.” and says Nakonechy “I think it is knowing who you are from a brand proposition, what are you going to be known for that’s crucial.”
Kamloops has a very small number of restaurants compared to Vancouver or Victoria, but the Kamloops City Hall’s business licensing office records show there are currently about 280 establishments that serve food in the city.
Over on the north shore, Mervo’s restaurant would have to be considered your basic diner. It’s burger and fries, bacon and eggs all the way. “I started working in a Greek restaurant and they didn’t think my name sounded greek, so they called me Mervo” he says.
He real name is Merv Shull. It hard to see much difference between the way he looks and his customers. On this particular afternoon Shull has a real estate agent waiting to talk to him because he is planning on selling up and moving to Thailand to retire with his wife after 25 years in the business. He interrupts our chat to wave say thank you and good bye to a couple of regulars that come in for lunch every time they come down from Williams Lake.
“I’m 29 and I’ve been in the restaurant business since I was 14, my wife and I have twins at home, another baby on the way and a dog and we’re renovating at home” says Ryan Clark. He’s got dark spiked hair and looks pretty cool in his back chef’s jacket, black trousers and black rubber shoes.
He leans forward, sitting very secure on a leather parson’s chair, his arms resting on one of the restaurant’s marble top tables. “This used to be a schnitzel house” he says “but we got a good deal on the lease and it’s got really big kitchen that any chef would love to have” he says.
And it has definitely been ‘de-schnitzeled’ since Ryan and his wife Brook took over. Giant framed mirrors hang on the modern sea foam coloured walls and a dozen or so sixties retro style lights give the room a bit of mood. In word, it’s kind of hip. It’s not Yorkville, but it definitely has style.
“We started with four staff and now we have 16” and Clark says
“I haven’t had a paycheck in 4 years, but my wife’s an accountant so
she makes everything work.”
Clark’s Bistro 326 on Kamloops Victoria Street is now in its 3rd year. Most restaurateurs are pounded into steak tartar before the first 12 months so by industry standards, the Ryans have cooked up a minor miracle.
If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Kitchen
It is easy to get burned badly in the restaurant business according to
Leonard Nakonechny from The British Columbia Restaurant & Food Services Association. “It’s a mean world” he says with heavy emphasis on the ‘e’ sound in the word mean.
Nakonechny runs a sales and marketing business in Vancouver, but he grew up in Kamloops, worked at Chapters View Point Restaurant as teenager and has been involved in restaurants one or another for the last twenty years. “The general rule is” he says “if you’re in business after five years, you’ve made it, before that it is a staggering amount that goes under.”
The BCRFA represents about a third British Columbia’s 11,000
restaurant owners, everything from cafes to fine dining. According its statistics, about 8 out 10 restaurants go flat as pancake before the can
get established.
“It is amazing, how many people don’t have a marketing plan, or a business plan.” and says Nakonechy “I think it is knowing who you are from a brand proposition, what are you going to be known for that’s crucial.”
Kamloops has a very small number of restaurants compared to Vancouver or Victoria, but the Kamloops City Hall’s business licensing office records show there are currently about 280 establishments that serve food in the city.
Over on the north shore, Mervo’s restaurant would have to be considered your basic diner. It’s burger and fries, bacon and eggs all the way. “I started working in a Greek restaurant and they didn’t think my name sounded greek, so they called me Mervo” he says.
He real name is Merv Shull. It hard to see much difference between the way he looks and his customers. On this particular afternoon Shull has a real estate agent waiting to talk to him because he is planning on selling up and moving to Thailand to retire with his wife after 25 years in the business. He interrupts our chat to wave say thank you and good bye to a couple of regulars that come in for lunch every time they come down from Williams Lake.
“When you’re a small operator you have to be involved with the
people, I used to have a pizza place and if I wasn’t working some people wouldn’t order.” Merv Shull turns and to greet another regular. “Hi Tom, be with you shortly.”
It may seem obvious but along with some pretty good business
sense and the necessary marketing plan, successful restaurant owners have to have the right personality.
“The people who want run a restaurant are people people, they can
talk to anybody,” says the BCRFA’s Nakonechny, “They are very good actors in the sense that can put a profile on with any particular guest.”
Kamloops restaurateur Martin Creutz Lechleitner at one point owned four restaurants in Kamloops. Frustrated by staff shortages, Creutz Lechleitner cut back to two establishments, the Amsterdam in Valley view and The Commodore Café and Lounge downtown. Before he took over the Commodore location last year it was fondue house. Creutz Lechleitner says “people’s tastes are changing in Kamloops.” He says his at the Commodore customers are “people from bigger cities, Vancouver, Calgary and Seattle, people who move here for retirement, they have been around and they have higher expectation levels.”
If you happen to thinking about buying Mervo’s on Tranquille or getting into the restaurant racket, Leonard Nakonechny from the BC Restaurant & Food Services Association has one more bite of food for thought. Make sure you investigate kitchen. “That’s were all the money is, the heating vents, the ducts” he warns. Having to repair or rebuild it is recipe for failure. And he says “most restaurants run a line of credit.” If you can’t pay your suppliers, they won’t deliver and your restaurant will be done like dinner.
Kamloops Tourism
By Brenda Craig
Published in the Kamloops Business Magazine May 2008
The seat belt sign will stay on throughout most of 2008 according to the Canadian Tourism Commission as industry rides out some heavy turbulence in many of the country.
Part of the problem is the pumped up Canadian ‘petro buck’, It’s like a bird in engine of the Canadian tourism and hospitality business and according to Canadian Tourism a lot of travelers are striking Canada off the list of affordable destinations preferring places with more favorable exchange rates.
But thanks to some bold marketing, interesting geography
and some new travel trends, Kamloops and its honey of a climate is doing an end run around a serious descent in one of Canada’s most valuable industries.
"A Hot Destination"
“We are absolutely bucking the trend,” says the CEO of
Kamloops Tourism office, Lee Morris. “Over the last two years we have averaged 6 to 7 per cent growth in overnight accommodation stays, so we are actually tracking a head of what you will see provincially or nationally.”
The loonies’ drag on the tourism and hospitality business has been practically invisible for the Kamloops market mostly because “70 per cent of the visitor traffic that overnights in a hotel here is from British Columbia”. Those overnight stays, according to BC Tourism put brought 57 million dollars into the Kamloops economy last year and tourism and hospitality is among the top employers in the city.
“At least 40 per cent are leisure travelers” says Kamloops Airport Manager Fred Legacy, as rhymes off the latest stats on passenger traffic at the local airport. “Last year 200,611 people passed through the terminal” and “Passenger traffic has increased every month for the last 23 months and it’s heading for 24,” says Legacy.
A long time player in the travel business, Legacy says there are several reasons for his busier than ever airport, but he graciously applauds the efforts of the Kamloops two-year-old Tourism Office. “They’ve done a great job of marketing and connecting people with things to do when they do come here,” says Legacy.
"The Sweet Spot"
Not only is Kamloops getting around the notion that Canada is an expensive place to play, it’s developed a reputation on the lower mainland, northern BC and Alberta as affordable. “we’re know as good value” says communications officer Miles Prodan from Okanagan Tourism Office “with lots to offer people who want an active vacation”.
Kamloops maybe have a near desert climate, but it is fertile
ground for outdoor fun and very attractive to what Prodan refers to as the “zoomers”. They’re an off shoot of the baby boomers that can be found at ski resorts, lakes, spas, guest ranches, motorcycles, RV parks, houseboats, 5 star hotels, wine festivals, golf courses and just about anywhere their imagination, money and good health will let them go.
Palm Springs North
“Palm Springs North?” sounds good to Ian Hansen from Sun Rivers Golf Course, but he thinks it’s a little early to slap that label on Kamloops. However, Score Magazine recently identified Kamloops as premium Canadian golf hot spot. The city can claim more than a dozen courses, 8 of them championship courses, within 30 minutes of Kamloops. “We’ve always had quality product, but with the additional of Talking Rock and Tobiano we’ve moved up a level”. And he says “you’ve got diversity and quality and you can come here and play six or seven different kinds of courses and not have the same experience twice and we’re definitely seeing an increase in visitors.”
If there’s an ‘oops’ spot for the Kamloops tourism and hospitality industry for Kamloops it’s the lack of upscale hotel accommodation admits, Kamloops Tourism’s Lee Morris. “It’s been recognized for a long time that we need a 4.5 hotel in Kamloops.” And as always, Morris says Kamloops needs to keep an eye on competitors. That hefty Canadian dollar goes pretty far south of the border and the challenge for Kamloops Tourism office is to make sure people keep coming to B.C.
And says Morris “there is a serious labour shortage for everything from housekeeping staff to hotel managers.”
Generally speaking, those aren’t really bad problems to
have in the tourism and hospitality industry these days.
What's A Speechwriter
Speechwriter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A speechwriter is a person who is hired to prepare and write speeches that will be delivered by another person. Speechwriters are used by many senior-level elected officials and government executives, governors, and the president or prime minister of a country. Speechwriters are also used in the private sector, to write speeches or presentations for company presidents and Chief Executive Officers.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A speechwriter is a person who is hired to prepare and write speeches that will be delivered by another person. Speechwriters are used by many senior-level elected officials and government executives, governors, and the president or prime minister of a country. Speechwriters are also used in the private sector, to write speeches or presentations for company presidents and Chief Executive Officers.
Monday, July 21, 2008
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