David Sheppard
09-11-2009, 08:19 AM
First, like other posts here, I would like to say how enjoyable it was meeting and chatting with so many childminders and forum members at the National Conference. I would especially like to say how brilliant the lovely forum ladies from Leeds were - it was so great to meet you.
The conference was set in the beautiful, plush (but let's face it - expensive), 'art deco' Queens Hotel in the heart of Leeds. My wife Ann and I arrived on the Friday evening after flying up from Southampton. It was dark, dank and raining when we emerged from Leeds-Bradford airport to pick up our hire car. Our drive into Leeds had us becoming more and more dumfounded as we couldn’t believe just how many speed cameras were planted on the A65 – they are literally every few hundred yards. After getting a little lost in the evening rush hour traffic, by being stuck in the wrong lane, we did eventually find the hotel!
Susanna Dawson, chair of NCMA, opened the conference and immediately demonstrated her wonderful presence and confidence by bringing the excited, and loud, hundreds to order and welcoming us all. We were then treated to a rousing speech from Dame Gillian Pugh followed by the amazing, inspirational and heart-wrenching, life history of Annabel Karmel - I'm sure there wasn't a dry eye in the room as she described her agony at loosing her first child and how she used this grief as a springboard for improving all children's lives through healthy eating.
After refreshments we broke into our chosen morning workshops. I attended an exceptionally well presented 'Reading for Pleasure' session run by BookStart. The ladies knew just how to engage everyone and had us singing, chanting and interacting in no time at all - we all came out smiling and enthused.
Lunch was a time to grab a bite to eat, network and then get stuck into the Exhibition. There were loads of excellent stalls and tons of information, help and products to view, purchase and subscribe to. You could also buy raffle tickets or enter the Tombola to support NCMA’s ‘The Gail Hall Memorial Fund’.
The afternoon kicked off with the second workshop. I enjoyed the informative session covering the continued success of the Change 4 Life campaign. This very serious attempt to improve the nation’s health through education, encouragement and subtle changes to eating habits and exercise, was well presented.
After another short comfort break, we re-entered the Ballroom to attend the Policy Debate. Susanna again brought us to order and introduced the proposers and seconders for the four proposals put to the membership. Each vote was well debated and every one of the proposals were passed by counting postal and conference ballot papers. We were also introduced to the Joint Chief Executives of NCMA. Together, they described their roles and how they are working hard to improve the lives for all childminders by lobbying all political parties and government bodies.
The raffle and tombola raised more than £1000 – a great achievement.
In the evening we had a fabulous dinner dance. This was an excellent opportunity to get dressed up to the nines, have your picture taken by a professional photographer and produced for you as you waited, then enjoy the good food, great company and the excellent atmosphere of the exquisite ballroom. Afterwards, Susanna greeted everyone by saying she, as chair, had to choose the music for the first dance. She decided to do something different this year and called upon all the men at the dinner (not very many of us I must say) to come up to join her on the dance floor. About a dozen of us did! She then introduced ‘I love to Boogie’ by T-Rex as the first dance that we men had to ‘boogie’ to. I can’t ever remember so many camera flashes being clicked at one time as we all tried to jig in front of the audience of applauding women – scary moment!!!!!
The disco was brilliant and had us all shaking our stuff until about midnight.
After a leisurely breakfast on Sunday morning we departed the hotel at 11am. We then enjoyed the sights and sounds of Leeds until our evening flight back to Southampton arriving home exhausted, enthralled and enthused at 11pm.
So what did you miss if you did not attend? The answer is LOADS. So try to come along next year in BRISTOL.
The conference was set in the beautiful, plush (but let's face it - expensive), 'art deco' Queens Hotel in the heart of Leeds. My wife Ann and I arrived on the Friday evening after flying up from Southampton. It was dark, dank and raining when we emerged from Leeds-Bradford airport to pick up our hire car. Our drive into Leeds had us becoming more and more dumfounded as we couldn’t believe just how many speed cameras were planted on the A65 – they are literally every few hundred yards. After getting a little lost in the evening rush hour traffic, by being stuck in the wrong lane, we did eventually find the hotel!
Susanna Dawson, chair of NCMA, opened the conference and immediately demonstrated her wonderful presence and confidence by bringing the excited, and loud, hundreds to order and welcoming us all. We were then treated to a rousing speech from Dame Gillian Pugh followed by the amazing, inspirational and heart-wrenching, life history of Annabel Karmel - I'm sure there wasn't a dry eye in the room as she described her agony at loosing her first child and how she used this grief as a springboard for improving all children's lives through healthy eating.
After refreshments we broke into our chosen morning workshops. I attended an exceptionally well presented 'Reading for Pleasure' session run by BookStart. The ladies knew just how to engage everyone and had us singing, chanting and interacting in no time at all - we all came out smiling and enthused.
Lunch was a time to grab a bite to eat, network and then get stuck into the Exhibition. There were loads of excellent stalls and tons of information, help and products to view, purchase and subscribe to. You could also buy raffle tickets or enter the Tombola to support NCMA’s ‘The Gail Hall Memorial Fund’.
The afternoon kicked off with the second workshop. I enjoyed the informative session covering the continued success of the Change 4 Life campaign. This very serious attempt to improve the nation’s health through education, encouragement and subtle changes to eating habits and exercise, was well presented.
After another short comfort break, we re-entered the Ballroom to attend the Policy Debate. Susanna again brought us to order and introduced the proposers and seconders for the four proposals put to the membership. Each vote was well debated and every one of the proposals were passed by counting postal and conference ballot papers. We were also introduced to the Joint Chief Executives of NCMA. Together, they described their roles and how they are working hard to improve the lives for all childminders by lobbying all political parties and government bodies.
The raffle and tombola raised more than £1000 – a great achievement.
In the evening we had a fabulous dinner dance. This was an excellent opportunity to get dressed up to the nines, have your picture taken by a professional photographer and produced for you as you waited, then enjoy the good food, great company and the excellent atmosphere of the exquisite ballroom. Afterwards, Susanna greeted everyone by saying she, as chair, had to choose the music for the first dance. She decided to do something different this year and called upon all the men at the dinner (not very many of us I must say) to come up to join her on the dance floor. About a dozen of us did! She then introduced ‘I love to Boogie’ by T-Rex as the first dance that we men had to ‘boogie’ to. I can’t ever remember so many camera flashes being clicked at one time as we all tried to jig in front of the audience of applauding women – scary moment!!!!!
The disco was brilliant and had us all shaking our stuff until about midnight.
After a leisurely breakfast on Sunday morning we departed the hotel at 11am. We then enjoyed the sights and sounds of Leeds until our evening flight back to Southampton arriving home exhausted, enthralled and enthused at 11pm.
So what did you miss if you did not attend? The answer is LOADS. So try to come along next year in BRISTOL.