...Vision-21 National Convention — An Outstanding Success By Moira Blincoe LPSNZ
Vision-21 was the end of an era for the Society’s national conventions as we have known them for so many years. For more than five years, it has been an increasing struggle for Council to get an affiliated club to take up the challenge and responsibility to organise and host a national convention. Consequently, the decision was made by Council two years ago, to change the structure of organising the conventions (regional and national) by bringing them under its own mantle, with a separate committee to undertake the task. The committee, however, reports to the Councillor of Events, now Toya Heatley APSNZ. This becomes effective for the 2022 National Convention, Off the Beaten Track, in Rotorua. That being said, now backtrack to 2019 when Christchurch Photographic Society (CPS) accepted the invitation to organise and host the 2020 National Convention. Who could have foreseen the disruption that COVID-19 would bring to us all? Not withstanding this disruption, CPS dusted off its blueprint, made some adjustments and refinements to the programme, and continued to work extra hard to deliver to us a convention that was an outstanding credit to the organising committee and CPS itself. The most significant refinement that the committee had to make was working around the unfortunate elimination of the drawcard keynote speaker, Julieanne Kost. After all, while most wouldn’t know it, Julieanne had indicated to us some years ago that she would “love to return to the South Island of our beautiful country, and if there was any opportunity to speak at a convention…..” The rest, as they say, is history… until COVID came along! 12
How fortuitous it was that the national convention was scheduled for the South Island in 2021. Under the guidance of the committee maestro Ian Walls FPSNZ, we had a convention that attracted record numbers in attendance; held in a venue that was an exceptional state of the art design and totally suitable for our needs, and a programme that delivered and met the Society’s mission statement of ‘Helping Photographers Grow’. There was something for everyone.
