District Conference

Thanks to all of you who contributed to making the District Conference such a great success.  Great location, delicious food, fantastic speakers and delightful company!  My particular thanks to the Conference Committee who worked so hard over 18 months of planning.  It all paid off, with the conference running very smoothly and efficiently from start to finish.

 

DG John and Julie, plus Yvette Reade, made the trip over a day early so they could spruik the conference in the print and radio media.  We had about 25 locals who came along to hear either Keith Abraham or Gill Hicks, largely as a result of this publicity.

 

We all started work on Thursday morning, with one team setting up the display tables and registration desk, a second doing the final packing of the registration bags, and a third team putting up banners everywhere and dressing the stage.  So efficient were they all that we were pretty well ready to go by 11am!  Registration started at 2pm, with Chris Dibden and Joy on the desk.  The Local Arrangements desk handed out bus tickets for the dinner and then lured people into buying tickets for both our raffles.  The main raffle had a set of prizes put together by Andrew Black, while the magnum raffle had a magnum of d'Arenberg Dead Arm Shiraz kindly donated by Chris Dibden.  Barry and Barb Grear, Bruce McDonald, Di Trethewie, Don Tindale and Angus shared the duties on these two desks.  Meanwhile, Dean and Pam Sullivan, together with Angela Rodoni, set up the Rotary Down Under stall and did brisk business for the whole three days - 15% of those proceeds come back to the Club.

 

Thursday evening we had a Mayoral Reception in the Ballroom at the Port Lincoln Hotel.  DG John and the mayor, Bruce Green, welcomed us to Port Lincoln and the hotel put on a fine spread of finger food.

Back to work Friday morning, registering more people and selling more tickets.  We had a lunch for "First Timers", including Youth Exchange and the Rotaractors, to which we also invited Presidents, as a way of welcoming them all, and then the conference proper got under way at 1pm.

 

The backstage team, led by John Wotherspoon, was highly praised by all the speakers who were made to feel at ease, knowing exactly what they had to do and how it was all going to work.  John's team consisted of our melifluous MC Rob McLennan, our intrepid time-keeper Ellen Tindale, with assistance backstage from Terry Rodoni on the first day and then Angus Tuck for the last two days.  Technical support came from the local expert Peter Mihalaras, assisted by a team from the Port Lincoln High School who manned the equipment and the video camera.

We had a great selection of speakers - Rotary International Representative Greg Ross, an actor and singer, spoke about Light Up Rotary and gave us a song as well, while local identity Stephen Kemp told us about the history and development of Port Lincoln and what makes it such a special place for him.  Steve Larkins spoke about the Virtual War Memorial project that the RSL and Rotary are working on together, and Keith Abraham showed us that "it all starts with passion" and how to find the things that we are passionate about.

 

Saturday morning continued the trend.  Mel Irons spoke about the disastrous Tasmanian bushfires, when the Facebook site she created became the vehicle for people to know what was happening and provided a means of channelling requests for help and almost instantaneous responses to those requests.  Doris Zagdanski talked to us about how we can better support people in their grief through more reflective listening ("it sounds like...").  After morning tea, we had a great "youth" session where Emma Forster talked about her experiences as an exchange student in Japan and how it changed her life, and then Steve McLachlan moderated a session where one ex-Youth Exchange student and four of our Rotaractors talked about how they got involved and what the experience meant for them.   During the morning, Terry and Angela headed off to begin their European odyssey but the team was bolstered by the arrival of Katina Jones, Barb and Fred Field and Miriam Silva.

 

The Conference Dinner was held at the Leisure Centre, a big double basketball court which the Port Lincoln Club had transformed - fishing nets along one wall, Rotary banners everywhere, seven boats brought in from the Axel Stenross museum, all adding to a great atmosphere.  I had totally misjudged the desire for raffle tickets and we ran out early in the evening, so Yvette volunteered to try to find some at Woolworths - as a result we sold another $700 of tickets!  The raffles were a great success - the topaz pendant that John Karran had crafted (complete with a set of photos showing the making of it) was won by our speaker Doris Zagdanski who was totally thrilled by it.  Thanks to Andrew Black who couldn't be there but did a great job putting the prizes together.  The magnum raffle sold out and a second magnum, kindly donated by d'Arenberg when Chris rang up to get some tasting notes about his magnum, was auctioned off, with Adrian Glover of Port Lincoln being the successful bidder.  The food, by the way, prepared by Kris Bunder and his team, was delicious, with the seafood entree the highlight.  And we were royally entertained, first by the local High School band and then by the local group the Marksmen.

 

Our first speaker on Sunday was Gill Hicks, who told her remarkable story of courage and persistence, together with her idea of turning the word 'peace' into a verb - something we can all use to take positive steps for a better world.  This was followed by Bruce Allen for the Foundation, and then Malcolm Lindquist talking about membership (Who's flying the plane?) and Kay Patterson on Interplast.  Doug Layng announced the next conference will be in the Barossa Valley and then Greg Ross and DG John wrapped up the whole proceedings, a few minutes early!  We all then repaired to a wonderful barbecue at nearby Puckridge Park where the local club put on a great spread.

 

As you can see, it was a great team effort, both by our club and the Port Lincoln guys.  There have been moments, but overall its been a great ride and we were all pleased to put on a good show.