Alice Springs - Last Drinks

Well as the saying goes "everything must come to an end" and that is definitely the case here.
Yesterday was our last day of the conference and like all the conferences we started the last morning with a motivational speaker, yesterday we had Tom Potter. Tom was the founder, director and chief executive officer of a highly successful very well know retail food franchise called Eagle Boys Pizza.
Eagle Boys had 200 stores around Australia and New Zealand. Tom sold the business many years ago and apart from being a motivational speaker he is also the owner of many bake houses around Brisbane.

 

It was very interesting and inspirational listening to Tom.

We then got down to business for the rest of the day and announced the conference closed at 5.15pm.
 

We all then headed back to our rooms for a very quick change into our finest outfits and headed back down stairs for the Gala dinner. 

The theme was pink in memory of a beautiful lady called Sharon who lost her battle with cancer earlier this year.

This is where we can finely unwind and relax but also were awards are handed out by the suppliers / manufacturers and by the RapidClean group as well. I am really excited to say Whereabout Sydney won 4 awards and Whereabout Brisbane won 3 awards.

I am also very excited that my old company Septone Products received the award for chemical supplier of the year and they wanted me to join them in a group photo.

 

 

After all the awards were done and the meals completed it was time to drink and dance and drink and laugh and then have a few drinks as well.

We were entertained by a drag queen duo called "Ineta Mann" and after a few impressions from Liza Minnelli and Pink and few others the rest of the theme was from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

This famous 1994 movie was of 3 drag queens travelling from Sydney to Alice Springs to perform right here at Lassiters Casino.

After their performance we all got up and danced the night away 

At midnight we got kicked out of the room we were in so many of us went into the casino and kept on drinking and getting up to silly things.

Alice Springs - Quarry Dinner and Dance

After a long day in the saddle it was time to relax and have some fun, this time we boarded buses and headed off for a 20 minute trip out to a quarry area. We were told told for days tonight would be amazing and I can tell you none of us were disappointed. Just driving into the quarry I knew we were in for a treat

From the minute we arrived we got the red carpet treatment.

We had around 25-30 minutes before sunset and I was in ore of the amazing colours this quarry was giving off.

 

We were asked to be seated and we were then treated to an old fashion bread making demonstration,

and an Aboriginal playing his didgeridoo.

When the sun went down the sky lite up like I have never seen before, living in a major capital city you don't get see the stars like you do in the bush.

The rays of light were coming from a light show display back in Alice Springs

After dinner I raced around taking photos of the beautiful light display 

We all took turns in cooking up some s,mores 

and danced the night away to an incredible local bush band

 

Alice Springs -Conference

 

Today was the day we got serious and we got down to business. RapidClean have an annual conference in a different city every every year. Manufacturers and resellers would gather from all over Australia to the designated area and the manufacturers would push their new products and promotions to the resellers in a speed dating type format. The manufacturer would have 20 minutes to push their products and then move to the next table and so on. For eight years I was on the other side of the fence working for a manufacturer, this year I am viewing the conference from a different angle as I am now working for a reseller.

After a little housekeeping we got entertained by a small group of Aboriginal dancers.

Every year we have a Pink Ribbon afternoon tea and sell Pink Ribbon Cancer Council products and all money raised goes direct to the cancer council.
 

This years event had an extremely emotional attachment as the General Manager of RapidClean lost his wife to cancer earlier in the year.
We even had the local junior school come and perform for us and they too dressed in pink

RIP Sharon
If you would like to donate to the Cancer Council research you can do so here
https://www.curecancer.com.au/donate?gclid=Cj0KEQjwpZO_BRDym6K_nMye7cEBEiQAVA7RaCSlgHf9Kl9FjhfwHhK2f0tANT3pNAVFKJJ8-wya9BUaArJY8P8HAQ