Consider the many times that you might agree to say a few words:

• Your parents have an anniversary and you host a dinner party;
• Your child is celebrating a special occasion (e.g. wedding, bar mitzvah, graduation);
• Your boss is retiring;
• Your sports team wins the pennant and you earn the MVP award;
• You've been named citizen of the year in your community;
• There is a piece of legislation that you strongly oppose;
• Your boss wants you to explain your company policy to the press;
• Your best friend needs a good speaker at the next club meeting;
• A close friend or colleague dies; and/or
• You need to introduce a speaker to an audience.

While audience analysis and knowledge of the expectations of the speaking occasion is important for any form of public speaking, this is particularly true for special occasion talks.

Here are some important considerations:

1. Be positive
2. Be brief
3. Be gracious
4. Be sincere

American Rhetoric website offers a number of famous speeches, including those seen in U.S. film. Go to http://americanrhetoric.com./ and click on “Movie Speeches” from menu at left to get ideas from films. Or for other topics try the Speech Bank, Top 100 Speeches, Christian Rhetoric, or News and Info. Giving a toast at a wedding? Check out tips from http://www.topweddingsites.com/wedding_speeches_wedding_toasts.html where you can click on Wedding Speeches & Toasts, The Best Man Speech, speeches.com, or 57 Best Man Speeches, just to get started. Also look at http://www.thebestmanspeech.com/ where you can get a speech plan, speech rules, and speech templates or http://www.free-wedding-speeches.com/ which offers pages on Funny Wedding Toasts, Maid of Honor Toasts, 10 Commandments of Toasting, How to Write a Wedding Speech, etc.