Take Flight - Motivate Innovate Celebrate

The Brisbane Subcommittee has been extremely busy planning the SLAQ 2008 Biennial Conference.
All Hallows' School, Brisbane 21-23 September 2008.

September's SLAQ conference is going to be the best conference you will ever attend!

Maxine McKew is proud as punch of her old school and with good reason. The buildings, the position, the views and the pedagogy are rightly famous. All Hallows' architecture is stunning from the unbelievably old Adderton House (1858), Andrea Stombuco's main building, the majestic convent and the gloriously gothic St Anne's Industrial School (1895). My personal favourite is the small octagonal building with the pyramidal roof that was constructed as an aviary. The senior and junior libraries are superb and there has been a brilliant reuse of nearby commercial buildings.

From all parts of this, the prettiest campus in Queensland, one encounters those splendid views of the river and city that are unique. In addition to all this is the fact that it is only a five minute walk to Fortitude Valley where there are a million eateries large and small.

The conference will begin on Sunday afternoon with a pre-conference tour of literary Brisbane. This will be a wonderful bus trip led by the fabulous novelist Nick Earls to parts of Brisbane featured in book and film. Those who book early and grab a place on the bus will indeed be happy people. Later in the afternoon, 'High Tea' will be served with ABC's Local Radio broadcaster of the Year, Kelly Higgins- Devine who will launch the SLAQ 2008 conference in style. The mild spring evening that follows will be the setting for the Hit the Town dinner. Delegates will be given the chance to dine at nearby restaurants with members of the conference committee led by Judy Russell. The conference dinner will take place on Monday evening at the splendid Qxley's on the River. One of the highlights of this event will be presentation of the 2008 Brian Bahnisch Award. On Tuesday early birds will be treated to breakfast with author Kirn Wilkins.

On Monday and Tuesday, the keynote speakers will be fantastic. They include Rob Chandler from Scots College Sydney, Patricia Carmichael from Concordia College Toowoomba, Belinda Weaver, Manager UQ eSpace digital repository, Stella Axarlis the master of change management, the prolific Barbara Braxton and well-known author Christine Harris.

The three themes of the Conference Motivate Innovate Celebrate will thread through the workshops to be offered. There will be abundant choice of sessions on topics such as Web 2.0, Wikispaces, Animoto, RSS feeds, verse novels, literacy, resources for Queensland history, comprehending stories, exploring the Web for quality resources, and with more to be finalized. It will be quite a challenge for delegates to
decide which sessions to attend.

Punctuating the workshops will be the Trade Exhibition and the chance to get a handle on new information products coming into the marketplace. Attending the Trade Exhibition is worth the conference fee in itself. There will be products available that are scaled to our size and interests and, more importantly, to library budgets.

All in all, September at All Hallows' School will be a wonderful occasion. Registration forms will be sent to all those who have registered an Expression of Interest. By all means book accommodation and flights early. It would be a huge disappointment to miss out.

James Hill, Brisbane Grammar School, Publicity SLAQ 2008

Last updated March 2008