Tuesday 18 May - Day One of the Conference

Anyone who has seen Alexis of late will have noticed her fantastic weight loss, and this morning I was able to see and participate in her modus operandi for getting her weight down. We were up at 6.30am and out into the pool (which incidentally doesn’t officially open until 7am). The water was body temperature even at that hour of the morning, but it was still refreshing and the 3 metre depth made sure we kept moving. We swam lengths for about 45 minutes and then returned to our room to prepare for breakfast. It was a very energetic start to the day.

Breakfast was under a canopy in an area adjoining the beach. We were a little later than some others who were just finishing their morning meal, so we were able to join Mary Cabrera and some other ladies from Thailand and Korea. Mary promoted the Platters of Peace, a cookbook which was produced by PPSEAWA containing poems and articles on peace as well as recipes. We were able to show our calendar to one of the Hawaiian delegates who took one to show her delegation and to get orders.

The Executive met in the morning, which meant that delegates had a free morning. Alexis and I decided to do a bit of shopping and a shuttle was soon available to take us and others to Hardy’s which is a Warehouse-type shopping mall of 3 levels in Sanur. I bought stationery material to prepare our booth, and Alexis bought frames for new glasses (they were very cheap), sunglasses, shoes and perfume. (Guess who is the pauper in this group?)

We arrived back at the hotel in time for lunch which was provided by the conference and held in the main dining room. I am starting to quite like some Indonesian dishes. After lunch, Alexis did a bit more shopping in the hotel mall, and I went and have some time out in our room until the Council meeting at 2pm.

The council meeting was interesting, and helped to provide me with some background about what has happened since PPSEAWA’s last conference but more particularly since the last executive get-together at the mid-term conference in Honolulu. The minutes of the meeting will no doubt be on the website which was a discussion item. The site is being upgraded (and as most members agreed, it was about time).

As part of the discussion relating to the minutes of the last meeting in Honolulu, Peace Statements raised by Jolene in her report and the letter that was put forward by Alexis following the Auckland conference, were briefly discussed. It was decided that the council needed to look at its peace statements and endorse them as requested by Jolene, but Vio apologized that she had not progressed with the letters to Tonga and the USA regarding their lack of signature to the CEDAW convention. Vio said that she didn’t feel that it was appropriate for her to have written to the President of the United States asking about this. However, for a small group of delegates who sat with us, and who were unable to speak unless asked, we felt that that had been a direction by the conference and should have been auctioned by the PPSEAWA Executive.

There was an interesting discussion about membership fees. The finance committee proposed a fee structure for rich, medium wealthy and developing countries. Alexis spoke on behalf of the Cook Islands and stated that there should be no discrimination except for application by a particular country of special dispensation. Her suggestion was supported by Samoa, Australia, Japan and others who said that although some countries may be considered wealthy, PPSEAWA members themselves in general were not. However, most agreed, that all groups had to fundraise to pay for any expenses, and that fees to the international body were an expectation that must also be met by its members, and if they had to fundraise to pay the expected fees, then so be it. The Taiwan delegation put in a spontaneous plea to the Council to seriously consider Taiwan for the next conference so that their country can be recognized, at least by PPSEAWA, as a country in its own right.

Before I left the meeting, I gave USD100 to the Treasurer. Apparently we were USD100 in arrears, so Alexis and I put in the extra money so that we could, in all conscience, be legitimate voters at the elections which will be held on Saturday – the last day of conference.

After the council meeting Alexis and I had to rush to the booth area so that we could set up our stall. Unfortunately we found that by the time the other delegates arrived, it was starting to get dark, and because the position of our booth was in such poor light, this made it very difficult to be able to clearly see the pearls that we’d brought over to sell on behalf of Mehau Piho of A& M Pearls. In good faith, we suggested to potential customers to return tomorrow when we would set up our pearls for them to be able to better examine their potential purchases in the daylight.

Despite some brisk interest in our products, delegates were keen to browse rather than buy. Alexis and I decided that during the report on the activities of the Gender Council of PPSEAWA Cook Islands, that the report would include some promotion of women business owners and entrepreneurs in the Cook Islands. We also decided that we will open up our booth again after the conference opening tomorrow although Wednesday programme is looking very full, starting with a workshop at 8am (before the official opening of conference at 1pm). This will be followed by breakout sessions which we still have not been given any information about, and we have been asked to nominate candidates who qualify for nomination for exec positions, without any bios about who is eligible. Alexis asked at the Council meeting as to the names of those who are eligible, but there is no information available. We could make a nomination only to find that this nomination is invalid for whatever reason. Nominations are supposed to be in by Thursday! Good luck to us all.

Neither Alexis nor I were hungry, but we went down to the bar to check out the music and had a coffee. We called into the reception again and asked when the hotel’s wifi was going to be repaired. Unfortunately the manager gave lots of explanations which were all directed towards no wifi was available and was not seen as a priority for them at this time. We were directed to the internet café across the road. There was a different duo on tonight. Very mediocre. We decided to have an early night.