Hi Toby, Lucy and Greg. If ya'll are going to setup some sort of speaker/mentoring thingy in Sydney perhaps you can get some help from people who have done it before:
All of this was from @cczona who is the "I" in the last bullet point.
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strong tradition of speaker mentorship on @devchix. It's how I got started; as well as long list of others who speak constantly now
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the mailing list for @SpeakUp_io does mentoring of new speakers. Low activity list with ppls incredibly generous when asked.
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another example is @antiheroine, who personally provides online mentorship sessions for women who are new to speaking.
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mentorship hangouts for speakers (not exclusively women) are organized by @juliepagano
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also @ladies_in_tech gives ongoing advice and workshops on speaking
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and I mentor new speakers (of all genders; though women get 1st dibs on my limited time). Would be very happy to help you setup.
If the goal is helping people prepare for conference/meetup presentations then it would seem like a good start to have things like topic brainstorming sessions, mentoring to help people prepare for their chosen topics, practice nights, public presentation games etc. I'd like to think of it as a study group because I haven't spoken at a conference either so my expertise isn't complete in this area at all.