AIA NAGM and YS

We register for Day 1, wich for me was the Youth Summitt, which occurred on Thursday 29th June. I drove 8 hours from Melbourne to Adelaide because I don’t like flying.

The “cool” table – where I sat, right up near the lectern

this is me giving my welcome address… which was lame lame lame

The plenary session finds something amusing

I was particularly pround of this photo. I took it just as Amy’s camera’s flash went off

These are the “youth” of Victoria, surprsing really as victoria’s total population is about 5 million…

These are the youth delegates from… (help me here…)

These delegates are from Western Australia

I believe that this is the delegation from the ACT and certain bits of NSW

This is the New South Wales delegation (and someone from Iceland)

The delegates from sunny Queensland

The delegates from South Australia

A common sight throughout the NAGM and YS, queueing up for lunch. It wasn’t all bad, as it gave us all time to catch up with each other

YS veterans Amy, Andrea and Jules interrogate Duncan Wilson from the International Secretariat

This is where most of the real discussion took place.

Andrea wrestles with the Rubik’s cube

We give the idea of “open space” a go, with some success

It allowed us to take our discussions to more comfortable areas of the hotel in which the conference was being held

One of the flight attendants from “Air Torture”, our little act to bring the concept of rendition closer to home

Luckily, our sessions were punctuated with many breaks for coffee and various other bits of whatnot. Notice the Air Torture posters on the near pillar

Some folks from The Change Agency explain to us the subtleties of Strategy and Tactics

…while I doodle my own interpretation of the subtleties of strategy and tactics…

Sittin’ around, discussing grass roots leadership in one of the many informative workshops

the Haigh’s chocolate shop was located on a nearby corner to where we were staying, and was a constant distraction…

as it happened, we were staying right across from the South Australian parliament house, where there was a protest about Guantanamo Bay in which we were major players

Notice the very fetching orange jump-suits

One of our trust Air Torture flight attendants hands out a boarding pass which further explains the practice of rendition

There was plenty of media attention and lots of chanting of “ho ho ho, hey hey hey, lets shut down Guantanamo Bay!”

This was a very interesting plenary session with Brian Dooley, also from the International Secretariat, who gave us an eye-opening low-down on activism around the world

A distorted picture of the session… comes from taking a photo through a glass. Supposed to represent how we were feeling after 3 long days of workshops and plenary sessions AND the world cup!

Dodgy as this looks…. this is actually a rehearsal for the Air Torture street theatre play which we performed at the NAGM dinner

Speaking of the Air Torture play… I was the captain (can you tell?). Notice that my hair is dyed to match the uniform, now THAT’S method acting!

The NAGM dinner was a sumptuous buffet. We were seated at the table closest to the food… which meant that we were last 🙁

We made up for this by having both (count them) of the International Secretariat big-wigs sitting at our table. This was probably before they found out that I was actually on this table. (they were too distracted by the pilots uniform and all the gagging of the flight attendants)

Another photo included more on artistic merit than actual content (i mean, it IS Jules). We went for a walk after the dinner and visited the various sights of Adelaide (it didn’t take long) and it being a cold night, we had foggy breath…

The final day of NAGM saw the official business of voting on resolutions and the executive committee… each blue card represents a vote

This is the victorian delegation (minus Nicki, who had to leave for an early flight)

Us four were among the very small number who were at the first youth summit… Jules, Andrea, Amy and I

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