What a weekend!

Receiving a Commendation from the CCGA-P, a highlight of the weekend, of Course it was! But far from the only one. The 2006 CCGA-P AGM was loaded with excitement, information, and good clean fun!

Day 1: The Tradeshow, saw many CCGA-P members discovering the SAR Management system for the first time. The reception was wonderful and as people started to realize what is now possible the booth that the CCGA-P had created for me to answer questions started to get crowded. The evening finished off with a group of the CCGA-P staff and some of the volunteers that had helped from the start enjoy a late night dinner and drink in the lounge. We were all very tired and had the giggles - so it was loads of fun.

Day 2: The Training Day, after breakfast the entire delegation was presented with an overview of the days events. I was able to show the SMS overview video for the first time - again to an outstanding reception. As is typicazl when I´m giving a short talk I couldn´t really gauge the reception of those present - but Kellei assures me it went very well. Other presenters presented various topics before we broke out into three sessions throughout the day when I had a chance with three seperate groups to go oover several aspects of the SMS in more detail. Some excellent questions made it clear that people were Starting to think About the posibilities and I believe I´m going to hear a lot in the future abouit ways it can be improved! It was a fantastic day - I must have been stopped About 20 times by people thanking me for the SMS and happy About how much of a positive impact that could see if will have. Throughout all of this Kellei was busy taking photos of everything (something I´ve spent much of the day today prepping and posting to the CCGA-P web site)
 

Day 2: The Awards Banquet, I joined Kellei as official photographer for the Awards portion of the day and after a quick change into more formal attire we shifted into the evening. Iona V. Campagnolo, the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia was the guest of honour and was piped in by a surprisingly young piper who made a flawless performance. Dinner was splended and the awards begain shortly thereafter. It was a bit odd for me to have to drop the camera and pop-up to the podium to receive an award. I was very honoured by the reception throughout the AGM - borderline embarassed by how much everyone was thanking me for the SMS. The certificate of commendation I received will always remain a highlight for me. At least 5 people baught me drinks that night - which was also very nice, but made for a rough start top Day 3!

Day 3: The Business Meeting, what can you say - it was a fairly standard agm business meeting (blah blah blah, all in favour, blah blah blah) but after a coffee break the Board facilitated a Q&A session with everyone present regarding anything to do with the direction of the CCGA that was very well received.

Kellei and I finished off our AGM experience with a meeting with Gerry Keeling of the International Lifeboat Federation (soon to be called the International Marine Rescue Association) whose web site I also developed via contacts from the CCGA-P. We met to look at the future of that web site and discuss a bit more About its development.

It´s good to be home - it was an exhusting weekend (I´m not even going through everything here - cuz there was just too much)

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