AMINZ Conference in Christchurch Facing the Future
All PostsA regular spot for each year for me is the AMINZ conference. This year we went to Christchurch at Rydges Hotel. A theme of each conference is that there are usually 2 streams of presentations, which are determinative and consensual issues. I always struggle to see as much as possible, because we are fortunate in having leading experts from around the world and New Zealand presenting to us. As important as education may be, for me meeting old friends and making new friends is just as important and I did a lot of both this year.
We began on Thursday with a session which I attended for FDR mediators, followed by a welcome function hosted by Fairway. There was a launch at the offices of Wynn Williams with a generous supply of delicious food and wine. It's great to acknowledge our sponsors who are so generous.
The official launch was Friday at which our president Royden Hindle impressed everybody with an eloquent mihi in Te Reo in reply to the mana whenua from Ngai Tahu, who welcomed us to Christchurch/Otautahi. This was followed by an inspiring address from an American mediator Ken Feinberg, who has undertaken some of the most difficult group mediations and dispute resolution processes in the United States. While he largely deals with commercial mediation, his role in administering settlement for tragedies such as 9/11 and the BP oil spill impressed all of us.
After that we got on with the presentations and I went to sessions on Resolving Wicked Problems in Communities, Dealing with Dispute Junkies and Dispute Systems Design, Effective Dispute Resolution for IT projects, Farm Debt Mediation, and our social event was a fun cocktail crawl which concluded at Fat Eddies.
The next day for me was the Fellows Breakfast, an opportunity to meet the senior members of our institute. We then followed with a presentation by a senior UK mediator Mary Walker on the future of dispute resolution. I then went to a session on religious disputes: Regimes Resolutions and Resources a fascinating look at an aspect of dispute resolution not many of us encounter. Maria Dew then presented a very thorough analysis of investigations and reviews, a comprehensive and structured analysis of real practical value. This was followed by a session on Restoratively Speaking, a more general discussion of restorative practice. This was followed by a fascinating presentation on how the Christchurch Cathedral dispute was resolved, effectively by getting the engineers to make reports unencumbered by their lawyers and clients. We then had lightning lectures with presentations by members of cross-border arbitration, cultural issues, our history at AMINZ, promoting our business and rural issues. The feature for the evening was our gala dinner, with 2 main events, being a farewell to our retiring Executive Director Deborah Hart, a welcome to Sue Wells our new executive director, presentation of honorary life membership to Sir Ian Barker QC, and presentation of fellowship to those who survived the exam process. As usual, this was followed by a great dinner and dancing.
There is a lot of work to organise such a conference and we have a great team who worked very hard to ensure that it went seamlessly. So thanks to Deborah Hart, Kate McCormack, Teri Miller, Natasha Couper and Lotamara Lauschner, and to our elected committee led by Royden Hindle.
A regular spot for each year for me is the AMINZ conference. This year we went to Christchurch at Rydges Hotel. A theme of each conference is that there are usually 2 streams of presentations, which are determinative and consensual issues. I always struggle to see as much as possible, because we are fortunate in having leading experts from around the world and New Zealand presenting to us. As important as education may be, for me meeting old friends and making new friends is just as important and I did a lot of both this year.
We began on Thursday with a session which I attended for FDR mediators, followed by a welcome function hosted by Fairway. There was a launch at the offices of Wynn Williams with a generous supply of delicious food and wine. It's great to acknowledge our sponsors who are so generous.
The official launch was Friday at which our president Royden Hindle impressed everybody with an eloquent mihi in Te Reo in reply to the mana whenua from Ngai Tahu, who welcomed us to Christchurch/Otautahi. This was followed by an inspiring address from an American mediator Ken Feinberg, who has undertaken some of the most difficult group mediations and dispute resolution processes in the United States. While he largely deals with commercial mediation, his role in administering settlement for tragedies such as 9/11 and the BP oil spill impressed all of us.
After that we got on with the presentations and I went to sessions on Resolving Wicked Problems in Communities, Dealing with Dispute Junkies and Dispute Systems Design, Effective Dispute Resolution for IT projects, Farm Debt Mediation, and our social event was a fun cocktail crawl which concluded at Fat Eddies.
The next day for me was the Fellows Breakfast, an opportunity to meet the senior members of our institute. We then followed with a presentation by a senior UK mediator Mary Walker on the future of dispute resolution. I then went to a session on religious disputes: Regimes Resolutions and Resources a fascinating look at an aspect of dispute resolution not many of us encounter. Maria Dew then presented a very thorough analysis of investigations and reviews, a comprehensive and structured analysis of real practical value. This was followed by a session on Restoratively Speaking, a more general discussion of restorative practice. This was followed by a fascinating presentation on how the Christchurch Cathedral dispute was resolved, effectively by getting the engineers to make reports unencumbered by their lawyers and clients. We then had lightning lectures with presentations by members of cross-border arbitration, cultural issues, our history at AMINZ, promoting our business and rural issues. The feature for the evening was our gala dinner, with 2 main events, being a farewell to our retiring Executive Director Deborah Hart, a welcome to Sue Wells our new executive director, presentation of honorary life membership to Sir Ian Barker QC, and presentation of fellowship to those who survived the exam process. As usual, this was followed by a great dinner and dancing.
There is a lot of work to organise such a conference and we have a great team who worked very hard to ensure that it went seamlessly. So thanks to Deborah Hart, Kate McCormack, Teri Miller, Natasha Couper and Lotamara Lauschner, and to our elected committee led by Royden Hindle.