Let's make it even bigger next year
Dear ,
This year's McIlwraith lecture was the best so far. We had 170 friends and supporters at the Greek Club to hear Professor Perry Bartlett AO FAA talk about his work with the Queensland Brain Institute, as well as what makes Queensland unique for starting institutions like his.
I'd like to thank Professor Bartlett for accepting to be our lecturer this year.
You can see the lecture on YouTube by clicking here, and the Q&A by clicking here. We also had a number of photos taken around the room and you can see a small selection of them by clicking here (send me an email if you want originals, or to see whether you are in any of the other images)..
Success like this doesn't happen by accident, and I'd like to thank our table captains, Lyn Brazil, John Brent, David Drake, Peter Dunning, Graeme Haycroft, Paul Hey/Stephen Bowers, James Jimenez, Patrice McKay, Campbell Newman, Errol Oates, Jane Prentice, Christian Rowan, Dan Ryan, Trevor St Baker, and Bob Tucker.
I'd also like to thank Darren De Bortoli, our wine sponsor, and one of Australia's wine innovators. The Greek Club was fantastic, and Marilyn Thurtell and Sophia Young handled our preparations and the night with grace and skill.
Nowadays you might think twice before naming anything after anyone from the past lest they behaved in any way but that of a contemporary wokester. (Funny how people who say everything is relative, suddenly pull out the "absolute" card when dealing with the past and judge historical figures not by the truths of the past, but the "truths" of our own day).
We deliberately chose McIlwraith to honour in this lecture not because he was perfect, but because what he did deserves to be remembered and learnt from - the good and the bad. If you believe in progress, as this institute does, then you believe that things are getting better, which means that they couldn't have been as good in the past. But we also recognise that our present state of "better" is the result of a lot of trial and error in the past, so it provides a foundation for the present, as well as many lessons in what works, and what doesn't.
Professor Bartlett will be past tense one day, and some of what he told us will be shown to be wrong, but celebrating achievement, and understanding how it happens, and the systems and customs that enable it, are some of the most important things we can do for the present.
In that spirit I'm looking for suggestions for next year's lecturer. I'm also looking for new volunteers to take up the challenge of being a table captain and finding 10 people to fill a table at the Seventh McIlwraith Lecture. My email is graham.young@aip.asn.au - I'm waiting to hear from you.
Regards,
GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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