AGI GeoCommunity´08

The conference is over. I have returned from Stratford upon Avon after the 2008 AGI Conference. I am exhausted, but very pleased with the way it went. A lot of people did a lot of work to make sure it went well.

The AGI Conference is always a bit strange for me, especially since my training is not in geography. It is a mixture of hard work and alcohol and not much sleep. And most of the work is different to what I am used to back in the office.

The work started on Tuesday when the team had to stuff a huge number of inserts into 600 delegate bags. My back hurt. Then in the evening came the pre-conference Icebreaker event. It´s the first time we have had one of these, and, scarily, I found myself volunteering to run it. I decided to run a dinner, a quiz and a theatrical event - Buffet, Brains and Bard.

So I found myself on stage leading a ´Very Spatial Quiz´. It was not long into this that I realised that perhaps I´d made the questions too difficult, but there was nothing I could do now. So on I went. I got particularly nervous over question 20 where I had to sing the question. But anyway I got through it and it didn´t go too badly.Then came the ´Earl of Oxford´s Men´ who did two performances from Shakespeare, one from Henry V and one from Midsummer Night´s Dream. The standard of acting was mixed but overall it was fine and delegates enjoyed both pieces. Finally I gave the quiz answers and announced the winners. The winning team got 40 points out of a possible 60 which I guess shows how tough the quiz was.

Over the next two days I was heartened by the number of delegates who came up to me to tell me how much they´d enjoyed the evening. Next day, feeling a bit groggy from the glasses of wine I´d had the previous night, I was room monitor in the Blenheim Room. No real difficulty there - just handing the microphone round during question sessions. At the AGI AGM, I then had to deliver the Finance report. The news was good, and although I do get nervous when delivering prepared reports, it went okay. AGI is in an improving financial position thanks to collective effort and a high degree of budgetary responsibility from team and Council.

That evening I dressed up in a very spiky wig for the party which had an eighties theme. It was fun. Crucially, I did not drink too much and went to bed shortly after midnight. Next day I felt okay and resumed my room monitoring duties and, despite briefly dozing off on a couple of occasions, got though them without incident.

And suddenly the conference was over. Tomorrow I will reflect a bit more about the conference. For today, I am just tapping into the positive remarks from delegates. I take my share of a collective pride in a job well done.