Dear Kathy, 

Let’s first focus on your first question regarding a creative start. Remember that finding a strong start is crucial in order to get the attention you desire right from the beginning. You should try to maximise the first 30 seconds. 

There are many ways you can choose to impress your audience: 

• make your audience laugh with a joke, a humorous anecdote. 
• surprise them by giving out something useful to them.
• Make your audience listen to you by starting with a question, a provocation or tell a successful parable, something with an implicit moral at the end. 
• You can also use games. They are considered ideal icebreaker but make sure they are related to your speech and tailored to your target audience. 
• People love stories. Share a story or your personal experience (eg. of a recent event at which you have been to). 
• Tell your audience your personal interest in the subject by using an impressive visual illustration. It might help you to undermine your point in a more effective way. 
• State a fact that is thought-provoking, outstanding or entertaining. 
• Present a scenario and let your audience think for a moment before you continue your speech. 

Now let’s talk about how you can engage the audience more effectively. 

* One idea would be to ask volunteers to join you on the stage. Making use of live illustrations can definitely help in getting your message across. It’s important to make the volunteers feel acknowledged. That can be done by asking your listeners to applaud. 

• Another way would be to invite your audience to answer questionnaires or self-tests. Why not trying to make them stand up and testify. 
• Let them do some small group exercises. 
• Ask them to jot down their goals, ideas, suggestions on cards and then present it to the person sitting next to them.
• As mentioned previously - games - would also allow you to give out prizes. Competition energises people and interesting results can be found.  

Dear Katy, I hope I could give you some good advice and I would look forward to hearing from your experience.....