A wonderful success!
The WriteMark Plain English Conference and Awards event held at Wellington’s Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa on 6 October 2006 was an outstanding success!
Thanks to all those who made it such a worthwhile and memorable day — delegates, speakers, workshop leaders, our two MCs, those who entered the plain English awards, and the award judges. Special thanks too to all those who worked behind the scenes to make it happen.
This event was a first for New Zealand. Over 100 delegates heard from four international plain English experts who shared their successes and brought us up to date with the best of overseas practice and research. Plus we heard from several New Zealanders who are making a plain English difference in their own public and private sector organisations.
Delegates came from the banking, insurance, academic, legal, government, medical, accounting, and publishing sectors.
We squeezed as much into 1 day as we could — a sit-down conference breakfast with entertaining keynote speaker Duncan Sarkies, 4 keynote addresses and 12 workshops during the day, and a glamorous awards dinner featuring Kevin Milne (MC) and keynote speaker Amanda Millar.
Conference objectives
Plain English is good for business and essential for democracy — and plain English makes sound economic sense.
The objectives of the conference were to:
- raise public awareness of plain English
- create public demand for organisations that communicate clearly
- help delegates to work towards plain English in their own organisations
- promote the importance of writing to an agreed plain English standard — either the WriteMark or an organisation’s own standard.
News and photos from 2006 conference
Presentations and workshops about plain English
