It’s been a hectic morning for me today, with phone calls and meetings taking up most of my time.  I’ve managed to pop into a few of the talks this morning and I’m now sitting up in the media room giving my views of today so far.

Apart from it being a late night after the movie world function (coming in another update!) most people seemed to be in fairly good spirits about today’s events.  The Expomart was a lot busier as I passed by on my way to the media room - as I mentioned in my previous update I think it was quiet due to the golf day which was heavily attended from talking to people last night.

There were certainly a lot of sore heads as is usual for any conference as it’s a great chance to be entertained with your friends and colleagues.

So, after catching up with people on the previous night’s gossip I headed into one of the discussion events, being called “Streams” this year.  The overriding theme of the event is called “Perspectives” and funnily enough, it’s all about getting things into perspective.  There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world, and I think it’s been a good idea to do so.

I will have to add one comment to this update: It’s just too hard to get to everything all at once.

Once I decided to have a better look at the schedule for the day I noticed that there is three, yes three, different streams all on at once.  With that in mind, I figured it’s going to be harder than ever to get to them all.

So, I didn’t.  Flitting between rooms is hard to do in order to get a quick run down on the discussions.  It’s pretty evident that if you really wanted to see a talk, then many of our readers would have been there, so there’s not really too much point in lingering on this one.

If there’s a session you really want me to go to, let me know and I’ll do so!  You can check the program out on www.mfaaconvention.com.au

One of the things that I have noticed so far is the complete lack of “Banks”.  So many of readers have commented on our previous posts along the lines of “I don’t want to go an event sponsored by banks telling us what to do”.  Well, then in my opinion, the MFAA conference is something that doesn’t fit the bill.  It’s pretty obvious being here, that this year the sponsors are simply that - sponsors.  You can either talk to them or not, but there’s been no “bend over for the banks” as I believe one commenter wrote.

Most of the sponsors who have a booth are in the ExpoMart or alternatively they have “hospitality suites” that are upstairs and away from most of the events.  If you want to go see them, it’s easy to do so.  If you don’t want to see them - it’s easy to do so!

With that said, I had better get moving from the media room and head down to the lunch-time session in the ExpoMart.  Hopefully I will get some more photos for you!

Until next update, stay tuned!