Above: Members take part in a drumming workshop on Day 1 of the conference

The AEU Women's Conference is an annual two-day event on the AEU calendar. This year's conference, which took place on June 24 and 25, was another huge success. Attendance was high and all who came along were engaged and excited by the choice of workshops and keynote speakers.

Friday began with an excellent explanation of AEU history by Professor Kay Whitehead from Flinders University. It was perhaps the best explanation I have heard about the struggles of AEU women, who have always made up approximately 70% of our union's membership, to gain equal pay, equal rights and equal representation.

The conference included wellbeing and professional workshops including, zumba, diet and nutrition, application writing and conflict resolution to name a few. Feedback from the two-day conference has been amazing and all AEU women should consider attending this conference in 2012. Chris Byford from Magill Primary wrote:

Having just attended my first ever AEU Women's Conference, I just wanted to say thankyou to all at the AEU for the amazing, inspiring, thought-provoking Women's Conference.

I really enjoyed it. It was wonderful to spend two days with friends, but even more wonderful to hear the amazing speakers, do the workshops and hear lots of information that I haven't heard before. Obviously a huge amount of work and effort went into planning the two days.

I told everyone at my school about it, put up the poster with a typed summary of the two days and raved about it to anyone who would listen to me.

The AEU will soon be sending a survey to those who attended in order to get feedback and ideas for next year's conference.

Tish Champion | AEU Women's Officer.