The JCI Canadian National Convention was held at the Kimberley Conference and Athlete Training Centre last weekend and according to Conference Chair Mike Adams of the local JCI Kootenays chapter, it was a resounding success.
"It went great," he said. "I had nothing but great feedback. The members were thrilled with the conference centre."
Attracting the conference to a smaller town was a bit of a coup as the national conventions are almost always held in major urban centres.
"Going back the six years I've been attending the conventions, I've been to Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto; the smallest city I'd been to was Kelowna, so coming to an area like this was different," Adams said. "One lady who has been going to the conventions for 17 years said the facilities were as good as any major city," Adams said.
"The Resort was great to work with, all the accommodators and the Conference Centre staff were just great to work with."
One of the highlights for many attendees were the excursions, everything from white water rafting to heli hiking to kayaking.
"We tried to focus on things you could only do here," Adams said.
Of course the spectacular weather didn't hurt, showing off this area to its full advantage, he says.
The JCI Kootenay chapter is a relatively small group and almost all of them were involved in pulling off the convention.
"We've got 35 members in our group and 10 people on the committee who worked hundreds of hours. At some point 20 to 25 people from our group had some part in making this a success. It's a really good group of people."
Adams said that they will have a meeting to go over anything they could have done differently, but he doesn't feel there is much.
"We had one training session cancelled because not enough people signed up so I guess we could say we wouldn't have planned that session but really it was as close to perfect as we could have asked."