What a week!

What a week! The PRIA National Conference in Fremantle was a huge success, breaking last year's record in terms of delegates. Rarely have I been to a conference where the room is still crowded for the closing speeches. A fantastic program! - and I like to use this opportunity to say thank you to our fantastic volunteers!

Lee Michael, Tash, Chloe, Kellie, Lana, Almora, Eric and Carli - you were absolute stars!!!!

One of the highlights of the conference were Monday night's Golden Target Awards. While some got very excited over the deserts :-) - others were simply too busy trying to capture Alastair Campbell on the bagpipes. I don't know how Tom Mackay managed to pull this off - never underestimate the power of persuasion....!

Alastair's role as key entertainment act of the night even made yesterday's Australian, under the heading 'Spinners can be grinners':

ALASTAIR Campbell, the bloke who guided the fortunes of former British PM Tony Blair as his director of communications and strategy from 1997 to 2003, showed a rather different side to his perceived public persona when he fronted as the guest speaker at the Public Relations Institute of Australia annual conference in Fremantle on Monday. Campbell was labelled by some in the British media as "the Antichrist" because of his spin tactics but in Freo he was all sweetness and light, so much so that at the official dinner he took to the stage with his bagpipes and serenaded the guests with Scotland the Brave and other Highland tunes after they promised to toss in some cash for his favourite charity, Leukemia Research. Campbell's good humour could be explained by the sales of his book, The Blair Years: Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries. More than 10,000 copies have sold here, rather more than Peter Costello's recently published memoir. (strewth@theaustralian.com.au)

I reckon it's time to give our feet a little rest - but I am sure we will continue to talk abut this years PRIA conference for a long time to come......