About Joan Small

Joan Small is an author, a poet, a speaker and a trainer, and helps others get their books in print or online as ebooks. She has been captivating audiences and readers with her friendly engaging style for more than twenty years.

Joan was born in Western Australia, but spent most of her life in the Northern Territory, living in the small town of Tennant Creek where she married and raised her three sons.

Living in the Australian outback didn't limit Joan, who was actively involved in many organisations as well as moving through different careers of teaching, politics, tourism and her own business. Through all of these she used her writing skills, branching out into poetry in the late 1990's.

In 2001 Joan moved to the Gold Coast where she became involved in a business group, International Toastmasters and the Gold Coast Writers Association.

Joan's passion for helping people to be energised and enjoy life, and her love of all things Australian from the Outback to the Ocean are evidenced in her writings.

As A Trainer - What People Say

As a training coordinator for Toastmasters I have had the opportunity to work with Joan Small as a trainer. She conducted a session on interview techniques at our major training day on December 3 this year. Joan had previously attended a half-day “Speaker to trainer” course, and I asked Joan to run this particular session because I believed she had a calm, friendly and thoughtful personality that would do justice to such a topic. The comments made by the participants and the evaluator assigned would seem to justify the choice. Some of these comments are as follows:

• Positive presentation
• Friendly, well-planned presentation
• Well done and encouraged good audience participation
• Very good role plays
• Role play was a good tool for the topic and was used very well
• Good interaction and participation
• Joan was confident and very easy to listen to

I would have no hesitation in recommending Joan as a trainer, and would also note that she is a good team member.

As well as my role with Toastmaster training, I have a Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment, so believe I can speak with some knowledge of what makes a good trainer and facilitator

Alison Watson (Advanced Toastmaster Gold), Librarian Southern Cross University