Parliamentary Conference

I was the official photographer for the 57th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, hosted at Westminster. The conference was attended by MPs and officials from parliaments all around the Commonwealth. The delegation were addressed by many speakers including Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague. The conference was officially opened by Princess Anne in a ceremony at Westminster Hall.

Spain

Great week in Spain visiting my parents (above) with friends Mark & Polly and their family. The week flew past with the parties, meals out, games of Tennis and hours in the pool. Poppy learned to dive and Skye learned to put a bread basket on her head!

Street Party at Spring Grove

I took these outside The Spring Grove Pub in Kingston. As you can see it was a brilliant Royal Wedding party. The band are called Plan B and they rocked! The pub kindly let me onto the roof and someone shouted "There's a shooter on the roof". Someone else shouted "It's Louis Theroux!"

Meanwhile my family and I were enjoying an epic Bar-B-Q. Many thanks to our generous hosts!

Old London Road Street Party

Old London Road's St George's Day Street Party was a great success! A fine time was had by all - including my daughters, Poppy and Skye (on the merry-go-round above). The band in the top picture were really good - Soul Beat from Kingston.

Testimonial

One of my event clients took the trouble to write me the following thank you note. Much appreciated!

"Thank you very much for your help and hard work during our recent 60th Westminster Seminar on Parliamentary Practice and Procedure and the Westminster Series: The Committee System.

We greatly appreciate your assistance in producing a fantastic photographic record of both events. In particular, we are pleased the delegates will be able to access an online gallery of photographs and thank you in advance for your work in coordinating the purchasing of these images. We look forward to working with you again."

Hatty Cooper, Assistant Secretary, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK Branch.

You can read more testmonials here; http://www.paulmilsom.co.uk/section77001.html

Westminster

A delegation of parliamentarians from Costa Rica met with the Speaker of The House of Commons as well as MPs and members of the House of Lords. They discussed issues such as climate change and drugs trafficking.

Happy Birthday Rose Theatre

Kingston's Rose Theatre celebrated it's third birthday this week. The birthday party included a brilliant performance of Peter Brook's Love is my Sin starring Micheal Pennington (pictured, second from top) and Natasha Parry.

Peter Brook attended the party and is shown above (top picture, left) with another legendary theatre director, Sir Peter Hall.

The third picture shows Roger Chown (Campaigns Manager at the Rose) with actor John Altman.

Below that; Timothy West, Stephen Unwin (Artistic Director at the Rose) & Prunella Scales.

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers, a new musical, has opened at the Rose Theater in Kingston and is playing until 2nd January 2011. I haven't seen it yet but the reviews have been excellent.

These pictures were taken on the press night, attended by Dawn French. She's pictured above with Francis Matthews, the Director of the show. The other pictures show the leading cast members.

http://www.rosetheatrekingston.org/

Westminster Events

Spent much of the past two weeks covering some fascinating seminars and meetings at Westminster. Firstly, there was a delegation of MPs visiting from Tajikistan. They are shown above during a lunch meeting at Lancaster House (top picture).

Then there were over 50 MPs from around the Commonwealth attending a seminar about parliament and governance. This included meetings at the Supreme Court (5th picture) and at Speaker's House, hosted by the Speaker of The House of Commons, John Bercow MP (final picture).

Climate Change Conference

Had a fascinating week photographing the International Parliamentary Conference on Climate Change. The evidence for Climate Change is overwhelming and all the actions we can take to reduce CO2 emissions are hugely important.

The top picture shows the delegates in Westminster Hall. Below that is James Smith, Chairman of Shell UK; Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change; Lord Adair Turner, Chair of the Climate Change Committee and Mr Speaker, chairing a debate amongst the delegates.

Human Trafficking Seminar

I’ve been photographing a seminar on Human Trafficking. MPs from 20 countries met at Westminster for two days to discuss issues such as domestic slavery and child trafficking. Panellists included The Speaker of The House of Commons and Claire Short MP.

There are over 10,000 people in slavery in the UK and more than 1000 of them are children.

Antony Steen MP organised an awareness-raising exhibition in The House of Commons. The exhibition was opened by Alan Johnson, The Home Secretary, and William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary (pictured with Anthony Steen). The exhibition included the opportunity to meet women who had escaped from domestic slavery in Britain, such as the one in the picture (her face is not shown for legal reasons).

http://www.kalayaan.org.uk/

http://www.ecpat.org.uk/

Conference Booking

I’m delighted that I've been booked to cover the 2010 Solicitors (SPG) Annual Conference.

Here’s how the SPG are using my slideshow of pictures from last year’s event to promote this year’s;

http://www.spg.uk.com/article/view/?id=181

If you know of anyone who’s organising a conference please forward the link to them – I’d like to do more of these.

Peacebuilding Conference

I’ve enjoyed covering an International Parliamentary Conference on Peacebuilding at Westminster. The picture shows one of the delegates meeting John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons.

Parliament

Westminster hosted a parliamentary delegation from Afghanistan led by H.E. Younis Qanooni, the Speaker of the Afghan Parliament. The picture shows him (on the left) meeting Ivan Lewis MP, Minister of State.

Annual Conference Slideshow

Enjoy a selection of the images I took at the Solicitors Sole Practitioners Group (SPG) Annual Conference. The conference took place at the De Vere Staverton Park Hotel (Nr Daventry), 15th-17th May 2009.