Perth Summit.

Once again I am writing in transit, but this time it from a QANTAS plane far above Brisbane and on my way to Perth. Originally I was going to occupy myself through this 5 hour flight by doing work on my laptop, but my laptop proved to be a tad large for the food tray and also I apparently charged it wrong. Meh...

I'll do some writing here and then have a nap. So why am I on a plane? Well I am off to a training summit for Artillery festival coordinators to better learn how to run these events. I'll be learning directly from Amnesty International peoples about marketing, budgeting, publicity, creating an event proposal and how to work with the media.

Apart from that I get to visit another Amnesty action center and be a representative of QLD. I can't wait to meet all the other coordinators and Amnesty people. It's going to be and I quote my own manager/guru 'party time!'

I can see in the very distant television screen footage of Gaddafi's murder coverage. I say murder because that's what it was and I do not approve, this in combination with Bin Ladin's murder has made it a bit disappointing when you're looking for justice.

Tyrants such as these should be trialled in a court room, not held to the front of a jeep and paraded around a village before being shot. I watched that footage this morning and I felt quite upset about it. Gaddafi was an awful dictator, but it shouldn't have ended like that. We're better than that. Seems like we're about to get some lunch so I might take a break for now.

Well that killed a bit of time, the TV screen was right over my head so I had to tilt my head back the whole time. Watched the Green Lantern, it was average, such a typical hero film...they bring 'em out and I keep a watching. Got about two hours until landing, have to wait till the credits end before they show that screen with estimated landing time on it. I'm listening to the new Jane's Addiction album right now, first listen and I'm digging it. So far it seems a bit better than Strays.

I'm so chuffed right now. I haven't really done any updates on how the festival is going, well here's the latest. We pretty much worked out our estimate budget yesterday, we're trying to put this together for around $2000. It's doable as long as there aren't too many unforeseen costs. When I get back to Brisbane we'll be presenting our event to the branch committee to get approval as to whether the event goes forward or not.

Not too worried there, they already approved the last coordinators proposal before they dropped out. Ours is cheaper, plus I've met a few of the board members before and we got on. The team we've got is truly fantastic, four of us really. But there are more people interested in helping out, meeting with three Amnesty interns on Tuesday to welcome them to the team. On Thursday I'm meeting with the singer of a local band called The Secret Whisper that contacted Amnesty because they wanted to get involved.

Had a listen to their music and they sound great, the type of band that really has the talent to make it. So we'll meet and just get to know each other a bit then hopefully come to an agreement. We started sending out the applications for artists to submit too. I made a Facebook event which I hope will just keep spreading as people invite their friends. I've been refreshing it every few minutes to see if there's anyone else coming. Can't on the plane though, the suspense is killing me. Well I might have a nap or something. No map on the screen yet, damn...

Almost went straight to bed and I don't mean on the plane. It's now 10:45pm on Friday night. What a day! Met Lexy who is one of the main Artillery coordinators for Australia, she was one of the people that created it. We left the airport with the coordinators from Melbourne and Canberra. Kind of like a mini-Australian UN. I dunno, I'm sleepy.

Visited the Western Australia branch of Amnesty briefly to pick up the publicity coordinator for Artillery and we had ourselves a posse! I've got my own room at the backpackers which is probably for the best, I'd been worrying about keeping people awake with my snoring. Now I can snore to my hearts content. :)

We were picked up again around 5 and went to Kings Park, a protected wilderness in the middle of the city and I have to say this with all honesty, it was the most spectacular view I've ever seen in Australia... Perth itself has been a huge surprise, I didn't think it had much to offer but it is an amazing city! It's a good thing I've now got friends here, I sense a holiday in the future. :D

So we met with the Perth coordinator, and the other two Artillery creators. After nomming on some cookies we began some movement games to get to know each other a bit more, the type of thing they do in drama classes. It was a bit of fun and it loosened it up.

We then got a bit more serious and worked on creating our own mission statement, words we could live by. I'll have to paraphrase mine since I left it in someone's car, but it went something like this. My aim is to defend other peoples rights until the day when everyone is equal and to aid the healing process as the world reconciles with its past.

That concluded the intro activities and we went off for dinner at a delicious burger bar for some excellent conversation. We were joined by Amnesty's national youth coordinator and the fun continued. See what I love about talking to these people is that we don't just sit around bitching about awful things in the world and theorizing revolutionary ideas for fixing it. We just have chats about current events and possible actions we might take in response. Everyone there agreed with my sentiments on Gaddafi's murder and even brought up Bin Laden just as I had. These are truly my kind of people.

I don't feel shy, I don't feel awkward. I'm just being myself and they're really receptive. I'm in a good head space right now. But I should get some sleep because I have to get up in the morning and work on my event proposals. Oh and we got our first artist application! I can't read it yet because my internet it terrible but I will in the morning. So happy!

Andy Scott