Perils of travelling......

It only seems like yesterday that we were at the Interlend conference in Edinburgh and here we are this week planning next year's conference in Manchester.  It was great to welcome the newbies to the committee but sad to say bye bye to 'old' outgoing members of the committee.

I remember my first committee meeting and feeling quite daunted by it all. Wondering what I could contribute to the group and what my role would be. The newbies have quickly got involved with the committee and with very little arm wrestling have taken on their new roles. The website will soon be updated and you'll know who is doing what.

I think the hardest part of the first committee meeting is deciding the the theme of the next conference. Once that is decided we can think about who to invite as our keynote speakers and the programme then starts taking shape. I think we got lots of ideas on the table to take forward so look out for the call for speakers in the near future.

Anyway - moving on the perils of travelling......Do you find that if you go on journeys with certain people you know that it is not going to be straight forward? There's one colleague in work with me and another is our outgoing FIL Chair, Marie. As we are both from South Wales we regularly travel part of the way together to committee meetings and conferences. Guaranteed when Marie is with me, we just get out of Birmingham New Street and the train stops and we're stuck for hours.  The best, though, had to be our journey after we left Edinburgh. We couldn't have any normal taxi driver!  Please follow this link and you'll see what I mean

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/city-taxi-driver-dons-comedy-nose-and-gets-out-puppets-to-entertain-and-sometimes-scare-passengers-1-2695468

He was totally bonkers!

We got to the airport to find that of all the flights that were cancelled out of Edinburgh, cos of the French air strike, it had to be ours going to Bristol.

We were put up in a grotty Travelodge in Edinburgh (I don't normally object to Travelodges but this one was pretty ropey). As you can see, even FIL the frog was fed up by then.

Anyway, despite all the calamities, it will be strange travelling on my ownsome.

So bye bye 'oldies' and many thanks for all your hard work and shw mae (hello) to our newbies.  Welcome to the FIL committee!