{"id":8756,"date":"2026-07-15T14:36:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/shepherds-center-speakers-bureau-offers-free-presentations-for-community-groups-3\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T14:36:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:36:34","slug":"shepherds-center-speakers-bureau-offers-free-presentations-for-community-groups-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/shepherds-center-speakers-bureau-offers-free-presentations-for-community-groups-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Shepherd&#8217;s Center Speakers Bureau Offers Free Presentations for Community Groups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\"><strong>COLUMBIA<\/strong> &ndash; Community organizations looking for an engaging speaker for their next meeting can take advantage of the Shepherd&#8217;s Center of St. Andrews Speakers Bureau, which offers free presentations on a variety of historical, cultural, and educational topics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">Sponsored by the Shepherd&#8217;s Center of St. Andrews, a volunteer-based interfaith organization serving active adults age 50 and older, the Speakers Bureau provides interactive PowerPoint presentations led by knowledgeable volunteers who share their research, life experiences, and special interests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">Presentations are offered at no charge. Host organizations need only provide an HDMI connection to a television or projector, along with a microphone if needed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">The bureau currently offers 16 presentation topics, including:<\/p>\n<ul data-spread=\"false\">\n<li><em>The Great American Songbook Crashes into the 1960s<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>The Real James Bond<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Sacred Circles: Spiritualism &amp; Myths of Native America<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>The Life, Times, and Movies of John Wayne, Western Star<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>The Nazis&#8217; Most-Wanted Spy: An American Woman with a Wooden Leg<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>The Real Wizard of Oz<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Meet King Arthur<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Ancient Mysteries: Stonehenge<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>The Great Lakes, Shipwrecks, and the Missing Confederate Treasury<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Who Wrote Handel&#8217;s Messiah?<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Democratic Socialism: A Primer<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">Additional topics are also available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">The Shepherd&#8217;s Center of St. Andrews is headquartered at Ashland United Methodist Church, 2600 Ashland Road in Columbia. The organization also sponsors its <strong>Adventures in Learning<\/strong> program, with the next session scheduled to begin in September at the center and online via Zoom.<\/p>\n<p>Groups interested in scheduling a presentation or learning more about available topics may contact Larry Brown at <a href=\"mailto:shepspeaker@gmail.com\"><strong>shepspeaker@gmail.com<\/strong><\/a>. Additional information about the Shepherd&#8217;s Center&#8217;s classes and activities is available at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shepherdscenterofstandrews.org\"><strong>www.shepherdscenterofstandrews.org<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COLUMBIA &ndash; Community organizations looking for an engaging speaker for their next meeting can take advantage of the Shepherd&#8217;s Center of St. Andrews Speakers Bureau, which offers free presentations on a variety of historical, cultural, and educational topics. Sponsored by the Shepherd&#8217;s Center of St. Andrews, a volunteer-based interfaith organization<span class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/shepherds-center-speakers-bureau-offers-free-presentations-for-community-groups-3\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[1360,1359],"class_list":["entry","author-john-griggs","post-8756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-community-news","tag-public-speaker","tag-shepherds-center"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gpstrianglenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Public-Speaking_2026_630x350.jpg?fit=630%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}