tara: Make sure that your drink is a)non-alcoholic, and b)not followed up with three bran muffins...especially if your speech is to be lengthy.

Thanks for the help guys I really appreciate it. Now lets see how I do on that speech

Excellent words of advice everyone! This information is great!!!! It will definitely help me in the future. Thanks

Quintos,after all these posts, we of course expect to hear from you how you did it.

It's a little late for this advice now, but I tell my students to find the students in the class they most trust not to laugh at them...not their friends, and most certainly not their enemies, but the generally good kids, perhaps ones that are somewhat shy themselves, and try to deliver your message to them. Since they are usually scattered about, you maintain some eye contact with the crowd and since these kids aren't likely to make you laugh or torment you, you feel relaxed. After a while you won't NEED to find friendly faces to give a talk, but it never hurts to have them out there!

...of course as an educator, you can always threaten them with bodily harm or detention if they laugh at you. What if you're a student?

I keep a big baseball bat in my room for such "special occasions"...

I often have to present to the staff at the end of the day. You want to talk about a hostile crowd and the need for baseball bats!!!! There is nothing worse than talking to your peers... as a student, teacher, or anything else! And I STILL look for the faces I can trust (provided that the head the face is on is not asleep on the desktop!)

I did decent in the speech I didn't get to nervous but I still need a little work on my relaxing skills.

Good for you!!! I'll bet the crowd didn't even know you were nervous!
Relaxing in front of a group you're speaking to comes with time and lots of practice!

Just remember that you KNOW that you can now cope with it;