~ Curious Charlie ~

Hay House - Mind, Body and Soul Convention @ Saturday, August 25, 2012

Last Sunday we went to an convention (seminars and book signings really) on an unknown topic. The event was called "I Can Do It! subtitled A Weekend Retreat for Your Soul. Presented by Hay House Australia (which I now know is a publishing company, that does new thought & self-help). Before the event I checked out the details, still don't exactly understand what it's on... other than some new age stuff.

Shirts - Light Pink.

I was shown the break room, given the uniform, and where to put my ~~hand~~bag. We were only needed during breaks from
Arriving slightly before 9am I met the organizer, who was lovely, and like me travel long distance for work/classes, he lives on the Blue Mountains, a place that snows. It doesn't snow in Australia, except on the mountains - or at least since I've been here. This is the second event I've worked at that was at the expo center, normally it's expos with 100+ vendor stalls in a warehouse-ish setting, but for this event it was a lecture/seminar colour blocked room, in the other part of the building.

I may have taken too many pictures of food, to make up for the lack of actual event pictures.
People talking and long lines of people waiting for an autograph/picture ain't that interesting.

The event was mainly talks, so we weren't always busy. I met 3 other girls who are doing the same course, all the other volunteers were women who were interested to very interested in the new age stuff, and there was one guy. When we weren't needed we could watch the seminar, for those attending it's 345.00 for a weekend pass. I only went 1st/2nd session with Dorren Virtue, which I mainly tuned out of, sorry but I'm just not really interested in the topic of angels & co. or that there was a cure for cancer but because it profits much more to treat rather than cure people are keeping it a secret.

There were very interesting parts, namely the part where Dorren demonstrated her possibly psychic powers O.o still not quite sure if it was staged, but if it was it was amazing. No I didn't know she calls herself a psychic, and one of the other volunteers (a believer) was slightly upset about that. I feel like a witchhunter among witches, which is funny, as I have been called a witch before. It's amusing that Dorren calls non-believers muggles :P. For her demonstration she picked a random person and said some stuff not in these exact words, but you get the point. To the first woman Dorren referred to her late husband(50% chance of him being dead/not) and said he was standing beside her, to the second she said her little girl was dead, it was a quote "tragedy", and said the little girl was in heaven with the woman's mother(?).

Morning tea, coffee/tea and healthy homemade-style Raspberry muffins.

Undoubtedly the most healthy and least cake-like muffins I've ever had.

During lunch we helped with book signings, at each table one person opened the book (makes it a few seconds faster :P) while the other does photos. I was at the table of Neale, who from my interpretation of his book titles, talks to God. The girl I was with said he was a great guy, as he took his time with each person. I think he did, not sure, but he did take pictures with everyone who wanted a picture. The other girls said one of the more popular female authors (can't remember which) didn't do photos (she had long lines) and had 1-2 body guards. O.o Everyone was very touchy feely, as in they liked to hold hands and hug the guy, fan girl mode, without the screaming and jumping up and down. There was a very uniquely dressed guy, in sort of a colourful striped onesie with a lace overlay skirt and a lady bug backpack. A little girl who gave Neale a book, at the end when he was leaving he didn't take it with him, so I thought he had forgotten it, and attempted to give it to the girl who was walking him to his hotel (next door) but she said he purposely left it, and only accepted it to be nice. Perhaps a better idea would have to have thrown it out in his room where no one would know.

Lunch...

No lighting edits on this one, the lighting was amazing!

Roast Beef/Veggie/Salmon Subs

I had the roast beef, lunch area had bad lighting hence no pictures of that.

Meatballs

Didn't try them as no one knew if they were beef or pork.

Ravioli

Same comment as above.

Amazing picture, same level as bread & butter.

Lunch dessert was something like a Raspberry Almond Shortcake, it was amazing. Didn't really get a decent picture, as the lighting in the lunch area was bad for pictures, unlike the kitchen (red background pictures), but it's in the 3x3 grid above, 2nd row 3rd column. The food was really good, for coffee they had Nespresso capsules, and there were six different types of tea. I do believe that the expo center did the catering.

Showbags

Is there a relationship between hay and hessian/burlap?

Luckily for the showbag team there were only about 5 things in them. Mainly flyers, a notebook and two cards.

Water wasn't in it, and the blue bracelet is a usb all the volunteers got, which contain last year's talks.

The Cards

It was an interesting experience, and I don't mean that in a bad way, like when you comment the food/comment was interesting. It was different, very different. I'm not into new age stuff other than collect pretty tarot cards, though don't feel anything and go eeny, meeny, miny, moe. I also like astrology, always wanted to see a fortune teller, but I do think it's mainly a scam. The Hay House symbol looked familiar, though matched none of my book, but I did some Oracle tarot cards that were published by them.