About a million years ago I travelled from Aberdeen to Birmingham to attend my first ever SDP Students Conference. It was held in the Birmingham University Guild of Students and we all slept on the floor in our sleeping bags.
It was a great learning experience. I remember it was the first time I had done public speaking training and it scared the life out of me. It really helped, though.
I really enjoyed the experience and it obviously dug me deeper in to the party. Not even the SDPS “Have you got the guts to vote SDP” campaign the following year could put me off.
I met some lifelong friends in those early days.
So it warmed my heart a bit to see Young Liberals heading to Birmingham for their Summer conference. And they even have beds to sleep in in the 2020s.
Got to love Callum’s suitcase:
And it’s great to see that there are loads of new people heading to Conference for the first time: