I am too jaded by far.

Because the quality of teaching at the conference was very high indeed. But that’s the old story for me - I come with these totally unfounded prejudices and misconceptions only to have them rightly confounded. The chat from Chap Clark was excellent, taking us through some of the conclusions from his research into the nature of adolescence, as was the time spent with Duffy Robbins investigating the Church’s response to Clark’s info.

All good, but by far the best part of it was so many youth workers together talking out the issues - and only a small number were employed in youth work, most being volunteers. That was healthy, as most (ie, almost all) of the people doing the work out there do so in a voluntary capacity. Excellent chance to put heads together.