The Cove

One part of my job in the last few months has been consumed by the planning and organisation of a wonderful event called the Partner Weekend. Lloyd, my boss, is the program organiser for this which generally involves overseeing what happens every single minute of the day during the event. As his assistant, naturally, this extends to me as well. Every year, we hold this event for our North American Partners to find out more about the work we do and also to give them an opportunity to support us financially. ( yes, the people we invite are rather affluent people!). I helped organise last year's event in Bermuda, but much to my disappointment was not able to go to the Pink Sandy shores of the island. It coincided with the weekend I was planning to travel back to Australia.

The Partner Weekend for 2011 was held in North Carolina in the town of Asheville- in the beautiful mountains ( although, I would call them hills- the Alps have changed my perspective on the definition of "Mountains"). I flew to our Florence, SC office about a week before the event to help tie up the final strings in preparation. I loved being in the "South" and, as I have a tendancy to pick up accents quite quickly, I found myself loving and picking up the Southern Drawl... just a little bit ;) Spring had sprung in the southern states, and the Dogwood trees were so beautiful all decked out in their pink and white blossoms. The Florence group drove up to Asheville 2 days before the Event as pre-briefing would start on the Tuesday. People from our Atlanta office, from the UK, from the East Coast and other random locations ( one lucky girl came from the ship!!! AMAZING - really, it was a bit of a struggle at first to coordinate for her to come, but thankfully, she made it!!) all met at the Center for some bonding time and last minute preparation. After a those first few days, the guests began to pour in. It was the start of a very busy 4 days for me but I loved all that it involved. Everything went fairly smoothly, with the exception of a few hiccups like power glitches and videos not playing properly. I really enjoyed getting to know some of the people who want to be involved in what we do and share in our heart. It was a beautiful location, great people, very good food--- well, I ate too much!--and it just made work fun :) I had the pleasure of being the girl to cut all the speakers short... well almost. I was given ownership of two red glowsticks that were signals to wrap up whoever's session. Unfortunately I had to use them more than I would have wanted, but it made everyone else laugh as they saw me cutting off our keynote speaker!