‘I didn’t think you could, or should do it. I was wrong.’ Such was the strength of feeling in some quarters, that a virtual Rotary District Conference as a substitute for a face-to-face event was impossible or unwise. We were determined to show it could be done. I can’t say that it was easy to deliver – there was so much more work to carry out, new skills to learn, more back-up plans to address the ‘what-if’s, and the stress of the unknown. But we did it! being virtual, it reached a greater number of people than a traditional conference; it was truly outward-facing (after all, what is the point of having a conference to tell Rotarians what they already know about themselves and their great organisation?; and it came in under budget.

I was invited to write an article for the Rotary magazine for the country – here’s the online version of it. ‘Don’t let the flame of the Rotary conference fade.’
Pictured is Eddie the Eagle, who was one of our key speakers. More to come about him and the other speakers – he was an absolute joy to work with, so professional and a lovely man to boot. And on the day, I had the honour of conducting the live Q and A sessions with the speakers – again, a greater challenge being virtual when you can’t see an audience’s body language to gauge when it’s time to wind up the session, but feedback in our evaluation post-event told us the sessions were well-received.