with special guest Rachel Sanderson, MP. Member for Adelaide.
It was a friendly and happy night with record attendance for our Cocktail Party event! Even though we were all pretty exhausted from workshops on Thursday and Conference Day 1, most delegates made the effort to support the event. 2014 saw our first DTA Award for Excellence on offer and there was also the Wendy Butler Award and the Conference Best Poster Award. The standard of entries for all awards had been exceptional which made the various judges’ tasks very hard!Our event was enhanced by the attendance of international delegates with fifteen very enthusiastic Japanese delegates from aged care health providers all engaged in the DT field and four delegates from New Zealand including member, Vijay Pillay, who was last year’s Wendy Butler Award winner.
The Wendy Butler Award finalists were: Jo Bozin, VIC, Michelle Maslen, VIC, Glenda Kubler, QLD and Vijay Pillay, NZ. Michelle Maslen, VIC – 2014 Winner was presented her $300 book voucher prize by Rachel Sanderson after the introduction by Jacqui Quirke, Redleaf and B & S Books.
The Best Poster Award was judged by votes from the audience once again and the finalists were: Margaret Bailes and Jane Anderson, Megumi Kojo, Yuichiro Oka and Miyuki Yoshida. Margaret Bailes and Jane Anderson took first place narrowly over Megumi Kojo who was announced as the runner up. First prize was $300 (sponsored by Insurance House) with a book prize for the runner up.
The main event of the night was the Inaugural DTA Award for Excellence and the finalists were, Jo Bozin, VIC, Glenda Kubler, QLD and Lindl Webster, NSW.
Lindl Webster won the award for her entry, “Avondale Technology Design Challenge”. Lindl graciously accepted the award and took us through the programme. Rachel Sanderson MP presented her with the beautiful DTA Award for Excellence a modern design in perspex, Certificates to frame and keep in her resume and the beautiful MacBook Air Computer as her prize.