Conference Host Clubs

NATIONAL CONFERENCE WEEKENDS SINCE 1960

In the early days each member club of the Association hosted the Annual Conference in turn with the host club's chairman in the "chair". The first three conferences involved just three clubs, London, Manchester and Birmingham. At the third meeting in Manchester in 1962, a fourth club had appeared but for some reason was not formally accepted into the Association until the following year.

This fourth club was North Staffs which hosted the next Conference at which itself along with four other clubs, Liverpool (now called Merseyside), Nottingham, Oxford and Reading (now called Thames Valley) were admitted into the Association. In these early days it seemed the host club picked up the bill since one item discussed was reimbursement of expenses to the host club. The first Association Secretary was elected at this meeting - which in certain ways was the "birth" of the Association as we know it today.

At this meeting a "fund" was proposed and the levy discussed. During this year "AIVC News" [Newslines] appeared. The next meeting at Oxford agreed on a levy of 6d [old pence]. The practice of hosting the Annual Conference by rotation seemed to have continued at least until 1970 when Liverpool hosted for the second time.

	Year	Venue (Club)
1	1960	London
2	1961	Birmingham
3	1962	Manchester
4	1963	North Staffs
5	1964	Oxford
6	1965	Nottingham
7	1966	London
8	1967	Liverpool
9	1968	Reading
10	1969	Leeds
11	1970	Liverpool
12	1971	Birmingham
13	1972	Sheffield
14	1973	Bristol
15	1974	Newcastle
16	1975	Nottingham
17	1976	Bournemouth
18	1977	London
19	1978	Birmingham
20	1979	Blackpool (Fylde IVC)
21	1980	Hull
22	1981	Hertford (Herts IVC)
23	1982	Manchester
24	1983	Cambridge
25	1984	Leicester
26	1985	Nottingham
27	1986	Reading (Thames Valley IVC)
28	1987	Winchester (Southampton IVC)
29	1988	Glasgow
30	1989	Liverpool (Merseyside IVC)
31	1990	Chichester (W. Sussex IVC)
32	1991	Durham
33	1992	St Albans (Herts IVC)
34	1993	Norwich
35	1994	Manchester
36	1995	Cardiff
37	1996	Cambridge (Golden Anniversary Conference)
38	1997	Nottingham
39	1998	Lancaster (Nth Lancs IVC)
40	1999	Leeds
41	2000	Bristol
42	2001	Winchester (Southampton IVC)
43	2002	Blackpool (Fylde IVC)
44	2003	Egham (West Surrey IVC)
45	2004	Bournemouth IVC
46	2005	Eaglescliffe (Tees Valley IVC)
47	2006	Nottingham (AIVC & Nottingham IVC) - ( IVC Diamond Anniversary Conference )
48	2007	Peterborough
49	2008	Norwich (Norfolk & Norwich IVC)
50	2009	Derby (Derby Focus) - ( Special 50th AIVC Conference )
51	2010	Clevedon (Bristol & Bath IVC)
52	2011	?

Note that Nottingham organised Conference in 1965, 1975, 1985, 1997 and 2006. This makes them the only club to have hosted Conference five times. But we should be fair about it. Many clubs, even quite large ones, have never hosted. No need to mention any names. They themselves know who they are!

There is no reason why any club cannot host Conference. You get all the help you need from the AIVC Committee. Certainly it's a lot of responsibility, but in terms of workload, it's much less involved than an ordinary AIVC Weekend. With the Conference, you pay someone to do all the work. You give instructions and they must produce the goods! Not at all like an ordinary weekend when you must enlist the the assistance of 20-30 or more members to do it all for nothing!

You can make a Conference work with only a small handful of helpers. In recent years the practice has been to employ a professional secretary to take the minutes. So even that task is taken care of. Colin Jackson [C.J. to his friends] said he was a "one man band" and it worked quite well.

One of the smallest clubs ever to organise Conference was Fylde with only 66 members in 1979. I remember it well! Fylde must have been quite a young club at the time - just out of short trousers or even younger! There was a reception attended by the Deputy Mayor of Blackpool, a ceilidh in a German Beer Keller and to round off a splendid Saturday night - a ride back to the seafront hotel in an illuminated tram.

So any volunteers for 2011 and beyond?

From an article by Walter Fung (Manchester IVC) in Newslines - September 1993
Adapted by Bob Clifford (Basingstoke & North Hants IVC) - March 2002

---