Western Australian delegates at the 1986 Conference in Adelaide, which celebrated the state’s Sesquicentennial Anniversary of settlement.

Back Row: Roma Criddle, Sr Clare Rafferty, ???, Bill Gaynor, Graham Cowles, ???, Sr Mary Kirrane, Patsy Runge.

Front Row: Sr Kathleen O’Connor, Mike Burson^✝,David Knockolds, Brian Kelly, Jim Smith, Ann Nolan^✝,Sr Maura Kelleher.

^{✝ Deceased.}

Following the success of the inaugural ACPPA Conference in 1984, there was no question that the conference must continue as a major event in the life of Catholic Primary Principals throughout the nation.

As significant numbers of Catholic Primary Principals wished to also attend the APPA annual conference, which provided them with outstanding speakers on global as well as national issues, it was decided that the ACPPA conference would be held immediately prior to the APPA conference. The second conference, therefore, moved to Perth and once again took over the boarding school at Santa Maria College in Attadale.

Then it was Adelaide’s turn and they decided to do something just a bit different. The conference entitled Faith Development of the Catholic Principal was held at the Grosvenor Hotel, and was a working conference using the Shared Practice model, a collegic learning process developed with help from Flinders University. Delegates were divided into small groups of 5 or 6 people, each with a local principal who had participated in prior training in the process, as leader. Theologian Fr Denis Edwards and Margaret O’Toole from the Spiritual Formation Team were the Keynote Speakers, who set the issues for the groups to workshop.

It was also in Adelaide that a tradition that still forms one of the keystones of our conferences was born. On one night delegates were bussed to Blackfriars College, not very far away, for a night of socialising. The evening took the form of a Bush Dance, with music provided by the boys of the college’s Big Band, ably assisted by a few of the more musically competent local principals. The ACPPA Social Night has been a fixture at conferences ever since.

It may have been just a coincidence, but Adelaide’s first casino had only opened 8 months prior to the conference, in the heritage buildings that formed part of the Adelaide Railway Station. This building was immediately across the road from the Grosvenor, and sort-of became an unofficial extension of the conference venue.