NATIONAL CONFERENCE WEEKENDS SINCE 1960
In the early days of the Association of Inter-Varsity Clubs, each member club of the Association hosted the Annual Conference in turn with the host club's chairman in the "chair". The first three conferences (1960-62) involved just three clubs, London, Manchester and Birmingham. At the third meeting in Manchester in 1962, a fourth club had appeared but for some reason was not formally accepted into the Association until the following year.

This fourth club was North Staffs which hosted the next Conference in 1963 at which itself along with four other clubs, Liverpool (now called Merseyside), Nottingham, Oxford and Reading (now called Thames Valley) were admitted into the Association.

In these early days it seemed the host club picked up the bill since one item discussed was reimbursement of expenses to the host club. The first Association Secretary was elected at this meeting - which in certain ways was the "birth" of the Association as we know it today.

At this meeting a "fund" was proposed and the levy discussed. During this year "AIVC News" [Newslines] appeared. The next meeting at Oxford (1964) agreed on a levy of 6d [old pence]. The practice of hosting the Annual Conference by rotation seemed to have continued at least until 1970 when Liverpool hosted for the second time.

	Year 	Venue (Club)
1	1960	London
2	1961	Birmingham
3 	1962 	Manchester
4 	1963 	North Staffs
5 	1964 	Oxford
6 	1965 	Nottingham
7 	1966 	London
8 	1967 	Liverpool
9 	1968 	Reading
10 	1969 	Leeds
11 	1970 	Liverpool
12 	1971 	Birmingham
13 	1972 	Sheffield
14 	1973 	Bristol
15 	1974 	Newcastle
16 	1975 	Nottingham
17 	1976 	Bournemouth
18 	1977 	London
19 	1978 	Birmingham
20 	1979 	Blackpool (Fylde IVC)
21 	1980 	Hull
22 	1981 	Hertford (Herts IVC)
23 	1982 	Manchester
24 	1983 	Cambridge
25 	1984 	Leicester
26 	1985 	Nottingham
27 	1986 	Reading (Thames Valley IVC)
28 	1987 	Winchester (Southampton IVC)
29 	1988 	Glasgow
30 	1989 	Liverpool (Merseyside IVC)
31 	1990 	Chichester (W. Sussex IVC)
32 	1991 	Durham
33 	1992 	St Albans (Herts IVC)
34 	1993 	Norwich
35 	1994 	Manchester
36 	1995 	Cardiff
37 	1996 	Cambridge (Golden Anniversary Conference)
38 	1997 	Nottingham
39 	1998 	Lancaster (Nth Lancs IVC)
40 	1999 	Leeds
41 	2000 	Bristol
42 	2001 	Winchester (Southampton IVC)
43 	2002 	Blackpool (Fylde IVC)
44 	2003 	Egham (West Surrey IVC)
45 	2004 	Bournemouth IVC
46 	2005 	Eaglescliffe (Tees Valley IVC)
47 	2006 	Nottingham (IVC Diamond Anniversary)
48 	2007 	Peterborough
49 	2008 	Norwich (Norfolk & Norwich IVC)
50 	2009 	Derby (Derby Focus - 50th AIVC Conference)
51	2010	Bristol IVC (Clevedon, North Somerset)
52	2011	?
53      2012    ?

Note that Nottingham organised Conference in 1965, 1975, 1985, 1997 and 2006. This makes them the only club to have hosted Conference five times. But we should be fair about it. Many clubs, even quite large ones, have never hosted. No need to mention any names. They themselves know who they are!

There is no reason why any club cannot host Conference. A club can get all the help they need from the AIVC Committee. Certainly it's a lot of responsibility, but in terms of workload, it's much less involved than an ordinary AIVC Weekend. With the Conference, you pay the venue to do all the work. You give instructions and they must produce the goods! Not at all like an ordinary weekend when a club may must enlist the the assistance of 20-30 or more members to do it all for nothing!

A club can make a Conference work with only a small handful of helpers. In recent years the practice has been to employ a professional secretary to take the minutes. So even that task is taken care of. Colin Jackson [C.J. to his friends] said he was a "one man band" and it worked quite well.

One of the smallest clubs ever to organise Conference was Fylde with only 66 members in 1979. I remember it well! Fylde must have been quite a young club at the time - just out of short trousers or even younger! There was a reception attended by the Deputy Mayor of Blackpool, a ceilidh in a German Beer Keller and to round off a splendid Saturday night - a ride back to the seafront hotel in an illuminated tram.

So any volunteers for 2010 and beyond?

From an article by Walter Fung (Manchester IVC) in Newslines - September 1993

Adapted by Bob Clifford (Basingstoke & North Hants IVC) - March 2002