There is a useful post by Rich Hopkins at his Speak & Deliver blog on February 27, 2026 titled A Plea to Meeting Planners. He had his left leg amputated below the knee. Rich says to plan inclusively:
“Ask speakers about mobility needs in advance - Ensure ramps are visible, safe, and easy to use - Provide seating options on stage - Reduce unnecessary distances when possible - Think about attendee navigation, not just speaker logistics.”
As shown above, on stage there preferably should be a chair with arms rather than a high stool.
Rich made it to the semi-finals (top eighty) of the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking seven times and the finals (top ten) three times, as was discussed in an article by Joe Rubino in the Broomfield Enterprise on August 17, 2011 titled Broomfield man aiming to be the roast of Toastmasters.
You can watch an 8-minute YouTube video of his speech titled What We Knew Then at Rich Hopkins 2006 Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking Third Place. (At 6 – 1 /2 minutes he sits down in a chair). And you can watch his Top Ten speech from 2008, Unthinkable.
Most of us don’t think much about mobility challenges either for speakers or the audience. I only did after I broke my fibula, which I blogged about on November 24, 2016 in a post titled What I’m thankful for today – recovering from a broken fibula.
There also is an article by Dane Cobain at speakerHUB on September 26, 2023 titled How to Make Your Public Speaking Events More Accessible.
Images of an amputee, a chair and a stool were adapted from Wikimedia Commons.
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