The very first Story@Home conference included a Story Slam. The second annual Story@Home will take place in Feburary of 2013, and it will have a Family Story Slam. Are you going to participate? It sounds like it will be exciting, fun, and amusing.
Story@Home is a conference that focuses on story. It is an excellent resource for genealogists who want to learn how to incorporate their family history into their genealogy research. You can learn how to preserve family stories from the past, and how storytelling helps to connect living family members.
The second annual Story@Home conference will take place on February 1, and February 2, of 2013. You can choose to attend both days of the conference, or, you can decide to attend for just one day. Each day has a different batch of workshops and presentations that will be going on.
The Family Story Slam will take place on Day 1 of Story@Home 2013. If you only attend Day 2, then you are going to miss it. The Family Story Slam is “a fast-paced event featuring five minute family stories based on the same theme and told before a live audience by people like you”. You don’t have to be a professional speaker or storyteller in order to participate. In fact, they are not interested in having people who are stand up comedians come and present a prepared routine.
The Family Story Slam is an opportunity for you to polish up one of your favorite family stories, and share it with others. Come to the event, and drop your name into a hat at the beginning of it. If your name gets drawn, then it is your turn to get on stage and tell your story! Each will be judged by audience members, who will assign a score.
The rules are simple. Pick a funny experience that involved someone in your family. Share what you learned about that person, about yourself, or about your whole family from the experience. Your story must be told in five minutes or less. It must be a true story from your own life. You cannot use notes, or read your story to the audience.
Keep in mind that in order for it to be a story it must have a conflict and a resolution. It is also good to note that this is not a place to give a rant, or to use as a form of therapy. Pick a funny story from the many that are a part of your family’s history, and get it ready!
Image by Hidde de Vries on Flickr