RIBI Conference Manchester 2017 Day 4

Sunday 9^th April. A few logistical issues this morning. We had to check out of the Hotel before going over the road to the Final Conference session. This meant my walking the 400 yards or so to the car park, paying the fee to get out (discounted 20% by the Hotel, but still about £12 per day), then driving it to the Hotel, loading it up with our luggage, plus yesterday’s shopping, then driving back to the car park. Even with the discount, parking in Central Manchester is seriously expensive, and I was in one of the cheaper car parks. I wondered what would have happened if I had just left it at the Conference Centre. The police would have towed it away, but releasing it from their pound might have been cheaper than the car park charge.

Bridgewater Hall car park, where I was 

Having finally achieved all of this, I rejoined the PDG at the Manchester Central Convention Centre for the final day of the Conference. As usual we started off meeting up with various friends from around the country. It was good catching up with the others from our DG group. Some have taken jobs with RIBI, others have been happy to take a back seat for a while, after the exertions of their year in office, and who can blame them.

Manchester Central Convention Centre

The final session got under way at 9.30 and I went to take my seat in the auditorium whilst the PDG headed off to the Guide Dogs stand. The morning commenced with a performance from the renowned Hallé Youth Choir.They were quite brilliant, with a varied repertoire of modern and classical songs. They were followed on stage by RI Vice President Jennifer Jones who gave her final address of the weekend, and once again I was impressed by her relaxed style of presentation.

Halle Youth Choir

After a coffee break, during which I sampled some ‘purple4Polio’ ice cream, a great idea from Huntley club in Aberdeenshire produced to support the End Polio Now campaign, it was back to the auditorium, to hear President Eve Conway give her final address, before introducing our next speaker, Eric Knowles. Eric, besides being a Rotarian himself, is a well known antiques expert and broadcaster, particularly well-known to viewers of Antiques  Roadshow. He had brought along a few old items himself, and gave an entertaining and often hilarious talk about them, and about life generally  in the world of antiques.

Rotarian Eric Knowles

Next up was probably the highlight of the morning, a presentation by Michael Angelo Caruso, a Rotarian from Michigan, USA and a teacher of Presentation skills. With a name like that, I knew he would be good, and he was indeed very entertaining, speaking about his experiences in the Corporate world, where he trains staff in Management and Sales skills. Some of his stories were superb, particularly one about a chance meeting on an aircraft, and they all helped to illustrate important points. There were several laugh-out-loud moments. He was the kind of speaker you could listen to all day, and wonder where the time went.

Rotarian Michael Angelo Caruso

He was followed by Martin Bell, former BBC War correspondent, who famously won the Parliamentary seat of Tatton from Neil Hamilton in 1997. He now spends most of his time as an ambassador for Unicef, and gave us an insightful talk about some of the troubled areas of the world, most of which he has visited at some time. He gave rather a downbeat view of the world’s immediate future, believing that some of the major areas of conflict are unlikely to be resolved soon.

Martin Bell

Well, I thought, thank goodness our final speaker this morning, Russell Grant, will provide some light relief and send us away smiling. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. We heard nothing about his varied media career as an astrologist, actor and star of ‘Strictly’. He was here today representing Dementia UK, of which he is patron, and Alzheimers Research, and told us the sad story of how his mother suffered from Alzheimers in her final years. He cared for her himself, until it was no longer possible, and now campaigns for funding of research into the causes and possible cures for those suffering from this awful disease. He spoke very movingly, and reminded me of similar experiences I have had myself. However I don’t want to sound churlish but I was hoping to be entertained this morning; I believe it’s possible to get serious messages across and still make the audience smile. Our two final speakers failed to achieve this, in my opinion.

Russell Grant

So that was the end of the Conference. It had been enjoyable in parts, uplifting in others, and I certainly enjoyed getting to know my way around Manchester. All that remained was to say our farewells to all our friends, many of whom we would be seeing again in a few weeks at our annual DG reunion, which this year will be in Essex. The motorways behaved themselves on the way home, and we were picking Daisy up from Sandra’s by 5.30.