Here is an example retirement speech designed for an employer to make to their employee on retiring from the company.

When (Name) told me he/she was retiring after [XX] years of service to the company, I was sadly moved.

I was here the day [Name] started working for the company and through it all, times of hardship and recession, he/she has always been someone the company and I could rely on.

Now [Name] may not know this but I have his/her first appraisal report in front of me and I would like to read out a few points.

• [Name] has delusions of adequacy
• He/she would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle
• This person is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot
• His/her men would follow him/her anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.

Now, the above statements are not true. But I have to say that coming to work knowing [Name] would be here with a smile on his/her face no matter what the situation has made many a tough day worthwhile.

[Name] has been an inspiration and a role model to younger employees. If all employees were as hard working and focused then the world would be a better place.

I only hope that who ever we get to replace [Name] in the role is as hardworking and career minded.  His /her replacement has some very large shoes to fill.

So on behalf of the company, and from me personally, I wish [Name] all the best in retirement. We hope he/she has a long and peaceful rest, spends some time with loved ones and does everything he/she wants to do with his time off.

All the best, [Name], and thank you for [XX] years of continuous hard work.

Look out for our template of the 2010 World Cup football shirts, coming soon, but if you can’t wait that long then check out our other Football Shirts templates.

Here is a nice set of Easter Clip Art designs containing daffodils, chicks, lambs and rabbits.

Don’t forget to check out our other Easter Templates and look out for our Easter Egg designs next week.

Much of the advice given in relation to successful presentations seems to focus on not only what you are saying but also on what you use to enhance it. We are told to use props to make it more exciting, and to use PowerPoint to make it more interesting but while attending a presentation recently I realised that it is very easy to go too far with this.

PowerPoint is a very useful and powerful tool which can be used to sum up what you are saying in useful bullet points, show graphs or charts to back up statistics or figures, and show simple diagrams, etc., but unfortunately it is also often used as the main focus of the presentation and can in fact work against the speaker.

It should be a prop and not the main character in your presentation.

I myself once made the mistake of putting almost everything that I was saying into my bullet points, and was told that my audience had read it all before I had said it, which was great because they were paying attention but also not good because it made the purpose of the presentation pointless. They weren’t actually even listening to me. I could have handed out leaflets and said nothing at all.

The other error that seems to be made quite often is the overuse of PowerPoint tools. A bright, colourful, and eye-catching background might make it stand out more but it also draws too much attention away from the speaker. The swirly texts are fun, but if the audience is struggling to read what is on the whiteboard/screen then they aren’t listening to what you are saying. The presentation that I recently attended had a very annoying cartoon character jumping around the screen, a mixture of different fonts and text sizes, and a bright yellow background. I remember the PowerPoint presentation but I missed so much of what the speaker was saying because I was focusing too much on the wall; even when I tried to look away it kept drawing my attention back to the slide-show.

It is fun to have a character, it definitely makes things more interesting, but keep things basic and try not to overdo it, have a character and plain slides. Or have colourful slides but a plain black typeset.

And if I could give one tip only, it would be to find out if it is possible to view the PowerPoint slide-show in the room you will be presenting in before you actually present; and do so from the back of the room so that you can see that the text is readable, that your backgrounds aren’t too bright, and that your little characters do not steal the limelight from you.

Sharren L Bessant

If you have a lot of information to show, or a concept to get across then one example may be a target segment chart.

It is a bit like a pie chart, but has a number of segmented rings around it.  It could be used for something such as a go-to-market, or a sales strategy chart, or to show the way that a customer base is segmented.

We have produced it in versions of 3 to 6 segments.  These have been designed so that you can change the colours, scale in size, or add pictures to the charts.

Again, these are all editable and printable so you can tailor them for your individual rewards!

Click here to see our other certificate templates.

They could be used as a teaching aid to show some of the concepts of geometry.  All of the shapes have been created using PowerPoint and they can all be coloured or scaled to size.

Here is a water bubbles template.  It was taken under water in the sea in Greece by our Editor with his underwater camera.  It took quite a lot of shots to get this right.

It could be used for a presentation on the underwater world, fish, the sea, oceans, liquid or the song ‘Blowing Bubbles’.

That’s the situation we find ourselves in at the leaving presentation, of course. This is something that comes to us all in the end.

But if you follow a few simple pointers, it needn’t fill you with terror.

First, keep it brief. Nobody expects you to talk for twenty minutes: three to five minutes would be more like the right length.

Second, keep it informal. Although there might be a little sadness, especially if you’ve been with the company for many years and have lots of friends, the occasion is basically about wishing you well and celebrating your achievements. You’ll probably have just listened to a brief address by your boss in which he or she paid tribute to your good qualities – but also mentioned an amusing memory or two. You could do the same about your colleagues, as long as your story is funny and inclusive.

Third, talk about some memory, something that brings a smile to everyone’s face.

Fourth, say how much you’ve enjoyed being part of the team, working on shared projects, experiencing the camaraderie.

Fifth, say a little about your future plans, what you’ll be doing.

Sixth, thank everyone for the present and tell them how much you’ll miss them.

Those are all good things to do. Now here are a few things you definitely shouldn’t do.

Don’t waffle, ramble or drift off the point into some interminable and boring story that no one wants to hear. The key word is punchy (not punch-drunk).

Don’t criticise the company or anyone there; even if your boss makes Attila the Hun look compassionate and caring, now is not the time to mention it. In fact, there is probably never a time for that, because you might need a reference from that very place. You might even want to use the services of your old company in your new role elsewhere. Not burning your boats is always good advice (even on dry land).

Don’t brag. Even if you’ve landed a dream job, earning in a month what you used to work a year for, keep it to yourself. There’s something to be said for downplaying your prospects rather than beefing them up.

If you stick to these suggestions, your leaving speech should be enjoyable for all concerned. And one last word of advice: rehearse it before you actually give it. Practice may not make perfect, but it does eliminate horrible bloopers.

By David Vickery