And about time too I hear you grumble!!
I’m wishing I’d written this earlier too, because all the funny little details have faded away darn it!! Don’t let me take so long next time #-o
Day 2 was pretty scary for some of my downlines, Kerri and Yvonne - they were both asked to speak during our sessions, and if it had been me, well the chemist’s around the convention centre would have all sold out of Poise. BUT those girls were GREAT! Well at least I know from being an eyewitness that Yvonne was amazing - she’s a natural in front of a crowd. Kerri managed to work it out that she was presenting to a different group to what I was in, but others said she was fab too.
It wasn’t all just group sessions about building our businesses though…. we had some hands on fun as well. There was a session called Pad Paper Marker, where we all made up our own colour charts. Some poor blighter had cut up teeny squares of every colour cardstock for us, and we had to go along tables that seemed a mile long, adhering the right cardstock, stamping the right colour, and scribbling the right marker onto our sheets in the right spots. It was a challenge actually LOL! Especially as there was a lot of talking and laughing going on. I saw more than one poor stamper start again at the beginning when she’d stamped the wrong colour! It was organised chaos!
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Then there was a watercolouring session - aha! now we got to use the Aquapainter that came in our Convention bags. These are the cute little cards we made, using Love Notes sized cardstock and matching envelopes. The stamps were from Fast and Fun Notes, and I am loving that hedgehog!
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Now see in the right hand lower corner of the photo - that’s the detailed pic of the embroidery on the white shirt I bought! It’s the image from Baroque Motifs! That shirt was one of the last impulse buys from Memento Mall, and I’m so glad I got it now, it’s so cute!
Now my memory is getting fuzzy about the sequence of events, but I think we had a lunchbreak, then after gorging ourselves on that (and being of the ‘waste not want not’ persuasion I ate EVERYTHING in that lunch box =p~ ) there was another general session with all of us there, to sort of wrap things up. I am pretty sure this was the day that Tracey won a door prize from Prize Patrol, and set the benchmark for over the top reaction to this - she was the last woman standing, and the prize patrol girl had to run from the other side of the huge room we were in to reach her. And all the time Tracey was jumping and jiving and yelling and generally going OFF. I was impressed to say the least. (And thanking my lucky stars that the prize patrol girl was standing near me when my name came up on the screen the day before - I wouldn’t have had the stamina!)
We all drifted away after that, to go and make ourselves beautiful for the Awards Dinner - (for some of us this took longer than others, and with the frozen slushies awaiting us in our room, I’m not sure we achieved it to be honest!) *Note to self - do makeup BEFORE the slushies next time*.
Just as I expected, the dinner was delicious, and there was plenty of laughing and chatting with everyone - it’s ’sit where you want’ at convention dinner, so everyone was mixed up according to how early they got there! There was a weird moment when half the people in the room got up and went to one side to have a photo taken - I’m one of Angela Sargeant’s downlines, and she has a large team now so when we went to get our pic taken, it was a big event, and thanks to Roz for organising us!
The Awards part of the dinner was SO exciting! There were so many names of people that I knew, so I was hoarse from shouting by the end of it. And there was my own little moment in the sun….
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Shelli gives a great hug - I was up there for a recruiting award, for recruiting 5 demonstrators in the last year. Apart from the stage walk, I got a recruiting pin, and a stamp set… Short and Sweet for this.
I was pretty chuffed when Shelli said ‘I’ve been watching you swish by in your dress all night’ ;;) - this is me turning back to swish at her LOL!
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And here’s Tracey swanking across the stage - I was so proud for her, she was up there for a recruiting award too!
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Now something weird happened to the photo’s I took of Kerri, Claire and Yvonne up on stage for Demonstrator of the Year. I think perhaps there was something in the *water* on our table, but somehow my photo’s are too blurry. Either that or my camera was playing up o:-) . But anyway…. Drumroll please…… Kerri Hunter…. No. 24! Claire Daly…. No. 20! and Yvonne Campbell…. No. 15!! How cool are they! VERY proud upline moments there! And a great big congrats to Linda Higgins for being No. 6 - she really deserved it! Of course there were others up there from my wider Stampin’ Up sisterhood, Jayne, Alisa, Ness and on and on.
AND Claire and Yvonne were up on stage again for earning the Incentive Trip! Way to go for both of them!
This is a photo of Kerri after she’d been up on stage for the Demonstrator of the Year awards, with Leonie, one of Tracey’s lovely downlines.
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And one of Tracey, Fleur, Michelle and Maggie…
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It was SUCH a great night!
Ahem but it didn’t end there! After we staggered back to the apartment, we noticed that the bar across the road was still open, so we went over there for a while (read - until they kicked us out), then it was back to our apartment balcony to finish the night. Or so we thought. At about 1.30am when Roz left, Tracey, Carol and I realised we wouldn’t be up early enough to say goodbye to Roz’s roomate Jani - downstairs we all traipsed, to jump on her and say goodbye.
Somehow Carol seemed to go into a deep sleep across Roz’s bed, and somehow it came to me that it would be a great joke to draw a moustache on her, and somehow Roz found an eyeliner pencil for me, and somehow she didn’t even stir while I drew it, and a goatie on her. Must have been some deep sleep huh. I can’t believe I didn’t have my camera with me, it was SO funny I nearly needed the Poise again. Well funny for us anyway, and it had rubbed off by morning so Carol didn’t see it, tee hee!
I think it was about 3am by the time we did get to bed, and HOOPLA it was Sunday the next day, and even the keenest labourer doesn’t get up to use his jackhammer on a Sunday, so we got a tiny sleep in. Poor Jani and Roz had to be up for pickup at 7am I think. Oops.
And now it’s Sunday morning… so technically Convention is over, phew!
I’m already planning on going next year, which will be in Canberra! And I think I’ll take notes next time so I can update better LOL!
I’ll be back just one more time with a holiday update - we went up to the Redcliffe Peninsula after convention, for four days, and there is a fantastic photo of us on one of the rides at Movie World. It’s a total crack up!
And then my friends, its back to posting pics of my cards and creations, which I hope you’ll enjoy as well!!
\:D/
