The gorgeous backdrop of Adelaide in Southern Australia set the scene for the GovernmentFrameworks.com Global Conference for 2019. The “City of Churches” did not disappoint. Attendees checked in to the classically adorned Stamford Grand Hotel, situated right on Glenelg Beach with sweeping views across St. Vincent Gulf.
The first two days of the program were social in nature, allowing the North American contingent time to adjust and reacquaint before we were due to lock ourselves in a room and get down to the nitty-gritty.
A Saturday expedition through the McLaren Vale wine region and along the Fleurieu Peninsula saw our team visit the family-owned Curtis Vineyard, where brothers Matt and Tom extolled the delights of their family’s delightful grape juice varieties while we enjoyed the fruits of their labor.
Next stop was to Willunga for a home-made pie at the local bakery, before continuing on for a self-guided walking tour of the beautiful Granite Island, just a short bridge walk across the shallow waters off Victor Harbor. In 37-degree heat even the blue tongue lizards were sheltering beneath the island’s sculpture artworks for a reprieve from the beating sun.
From there the bus headed north, with glimpses of rugged bush and lazing kangaroos amongst the sheep and cattle. A brief stop at the Smiling Samoyed Brewery further delighted the tourists as just off the deck kangaroos idled with joeys in their pouches, fearless enough to come within meters of us to marvel upon their placid beauty and capture great memories.
The remaining stop of the day found us on the lawn of the Victory Hotel where the sun was due to set across the western part of the gulf, before heading downstairs for a delightful dinner accompanied by some raucous and amusing conversation.
Sunday was equally as enjoyable with our ever-growing team spending most of the day exploring the area, before congregating at Sean and Anne’s House to feast on the wares straight out of their wood-fired pizza oven.
With pizzas coming out as fast as their beautiful pups Rosie and Ruby could pounce on a dropped piece of ham, toppings including smoked salmon, prosciutto, king prawn, flor di latte and vegan cheese ensuring there was something for everyone. Some accompanying wine sourced from Curtis Vineyard added to the occasion and everyone headed to bed early in preparation for the three days of the conference.
With all the fun and games aside, the Global Conference 2019 program explored how the team could increase efficiency, provide enhanced customer service, mitigate any issues around our continued expansion and further develop the GovernmentFrameworks.com Local Government Framework©.
As a global team, it is fantastic to get everyone in one room and expand on thoughts and ideas that can help propel our work further, with GovernmentFrameworks.com continuing to lead the local government planning, measuring, tracking, and reporting space more widely, especially in the area of corporate performance management.
Some of our Global Conference 2019 discussion points included the great work done by Marie in the area of digital communications, advancing our training and development program, sales updates from each sector of the global market, technological skills development, company-wide SWOT analysis, and a GovernmentFrameworks.com Local Government Framework© collaborative project. It was great to receive different vantage points on all these topics from all the members of our team.
Once the official proceedings were retired – while not going out with a bang per se, there certainly was a lot of noise as the team let their hair (and dignity) down at Adelaide’s classiest karaoke bar. It was here we learned Dolena is a genuine rock star and Phil is tone-deaf, yet he was still able to spark the crowd with use of his local knowledge by belting out a song embedded deep within the South Australian psyche, Eagle Rock.
As always, it is a pleasure to catch up with a team as intellectually and socially agile as ours. Can’t wait for Conference 2020.
