Tuesday

Up bright and early I had breakfast and headed to the conference centre for about nine.  There was a little bit of work to be done with moving the agenda around, because of changes to the Minister's timetable.  Those amendments made it was a quick wiz round the centre and exhibition to make sure that everything was OK and all the exhibitors had all they needed.  As I was speaking within the first plenary session I had to get myself miked up with the rest of the panel, before we opened the conference debates.  Our pair of wonderful Christine's (Baroness Crawley and Heemskerk) opened the conference and launched the consumer codes approval scheme.  I had used the opportunity to say a few words about how I saw the conference developing over the next few years.  There then followed a plenary session where we looked at how we could avoid the post code lottery for consumer protection.

I then had to rush to the consumer codes stand where Baroness Crawley posed for photos with the code sponsors and cut the official codes cake. A quick glass of bubbly and then round the exhibition to make sure the exhibitors were happy and everything was running smoothly.  No time for lunch as I was participating in a min-theatre session on the future of Local Authority Approved Trader Schemes.  Straight from the mini-theatre to the Consumer Challenge Quiz – one of my favourite competitions – I watched about 20 minutes before I had to disappear to meet the Minister, Jo Swinson.  Congratulations to Kaimes School, Edinburgh on their victory.  A quick dash around the exhibition with the Minister, including a photo call with code sponsors and others before heading off to the main auditorium.  Here the Minister gave a speech on the government's vision for consumer protection and took a couple of quick questions.  I then escorted the Minister to her taxi before returning to the rest of the Institute celebrates success session.  I thought Ron was a great orator and it was really good to see and listen to Peter Denard.  After the announcement of a few awards, including my old authority Cambridgeshire winning the Primary Authority of the Year, it was good to see this graduates receive their certificates from our Chairman.  Back to the hotel for a quick shower before returning (in my dinner suit) to the venue for the awards dinner.    Again Ron was the host and it was good to see him receive his life membership and vice-presidency – both thoroughly deserved.  A number of awards were handed out on the evening and we had a little dance to the band the MP3s (www.themp3sband.co.uk).  I was going to retire to the hotel when someone suggested that we had a night cap at the party night.  This proved to be a bad idea and I apologies to all those that had to put up with my serious "dad dancing".  Far too late I ended up back in the hotel!