Fortunately, our flight over here was plain sailing, with no delays due to weather. However, with two of our group being nervous flyers, this didn’t matter!
On our arrival to the hotel (which is magnificent!) we had a walkthrough of where the conference rooms and poster presentation room will be held in. The poster presentation room made our jaws drop as it’s as big as a football pitch.
Although we are still settling into our surroundings, the 18th Annual Meeting of the International Alliance for ALS/MND Associations (of which we are a member) has already been and gone. The figures are yet to come in, but the feedback is that it was a good turnout – a really successful two-day meeting with over 80 delegates from members of the Alliance from across the world.
Steve Bell, who is one of our care directors, represented the Association at this meeting. He also gave an overview of our latest awareness campaign –
Incurable Optimism – which in Steve’s words “went down a storm”.
After seeing Steve this lunchtime when the meeting had formally finished, he told me that that the closing thought for this year’s event was quite simply “let’s all be incurable optimists worldwide”.
This is a fantastic ending for the International Alliance meeting and really sets the tone as we approach the symposium.
The symposium kicks off on Saturday, and until then, it’s all hands on deck to make sure we’re ready for the hundreds of delegates who will be attending to talk solely about MND – which is just what we like to hear!
