DISTRICT 90 INAUGURAL ANNUAL CONFERENCE

The inaugural District 90 Annual Conference was a great success with over 250 attending the Saturday night Dinner and International Speech Competition.

The event was held at the Rooty Hill RSL and Novotel from Friday 30th April to Sunday 1st May.   The venue and accommodation were ideal, and they will probably be used for future conferences.

However I was directly approached with the opportunity for our club to apply to host a conference.  Are we up for it?  If we would like to do it we need to start putting a proposition together now.

I represented Oxley Division in the International but was unplaced.  The winner was Chris Davitt from the Mosman club. He will be one of Australia’s representatives at the World Championship of Public Speaking in Washington DC in August.

In the Evaluation Contest, held on Sunday, Robert Bath from Charlestown took first place.

At the Annual Business Meeting there were a string of motions to change the customary procedures for speech contests in our District.  In summary they were to cut down the number of contests and to hold all contests at the one time.  All the motions were soundly defeated.  District 90 will continue to hold the Humorous and Table Topics contests at the Semi Annual Conference in November, and the International and Evaluation contests at the Annual Conference in May.  However each Area may choose to hold them at any time before those dates.  So contestants, we could have a four-speech Area contest in August.

I’ll conclude with my highlights.  For me they were the presentations from the 2009 World Champion, ‘The Wizard from Oz,’ marvelous Mark Hunter.  It was worth going just to hear that inspiring man speak.