Sweaty palms

Church House Conference Centre saw host to this year’s NLGN Annual Conference, in partnership with LGC - a “must attend” event for senior local government figures.

Arranged in cabaret style, my first thought was “is this room going to be big enough?” A quick chair count and indeed it won’t! More chairs rushed in and suddenly we were ready to begin.

As people began to arrive, delegates, speakers and staff, we were filling up 2 exhibition rooms very quickly.

Emma Maier, Editor of LGC kicked off proceedings, slightly late at 09:40 (we blame the underground for this, not Emma) with a brief introduction of Txttools – the new way to ask your conference questions - followed by a light hearted but very informative intro from Chris Leslie, Director, NLGN.

Meanwhile, all palms clammy at registration as Caroline Spelman was due to arrive.  With 4 senior Government figures due to arrive over the course of the day, we were rather at the mercy of very tight schedules and entourages of concerned PAs. Potential for our carefully timed agenda to go out of the window was worryingly high but the government gods were clearly on our side as speakers came and went with almost military precision.

Throughout the course of the day, 220 delegates, 19 speakers and 9 exhibitors shared their thoughts, fears and hopes for the future of local government, making valuable new connections, meeting old friends and drinking gallons of tea.

Twice delegates split into 3 groups to discuss different issues; from the Operational Efficiency Programme to Regeneration, Infrastructure and Investment. LGC staff did their best impressions of directional signage – ensuring 250 people got to the right room – and one group had to be prised from their discussions 20 minutes into the lunch break. Always a good sign!

The content of the day ended on a high with Philip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and then all that remained was to persuade people to join us for a glass of wine, courtesy of Zurich Municipal.