On July 6th and 7th it was EOA's 10th annual conference and my first EOA conference. For me the experience started with a train journey down from Yorkshire to Bedfordshire late on a sunny Monday afternoon, to arrive at the excellent Wyboston Lakes. I checked into my room for the duration of the conference and when I finally left on the Wednesday, I was exhausted by the amount of information I had absorbed and the amount of networking I'd done. The conference was a noteworthy one because it was the 10th birthday celebration, which was fantastic fun and great to celebrate such a momentous event and because I learnt so much more than I thought was possible from the two days.

The conference was jam packed with clinics, workshops, speakers and opportunities to network. I filled the A4 pad provided in the conference pack with copious notes from each session I attended. Those notes have since been referred to many times in my conversations with colleagues back at school. Of particular use were the clinics with Edexcel, OCR and QCDA (by the way please support QCDA in championing the role of the CSOs, they are very helpful to both new and existing Exams Officers – I do still call on my CSO for support from time to time even now).

The workshops I attended were Managing People, Managing Budgets and the optional CPD workshop at the end of the first day. In the first of these workshops Julie Marsden gave information and handouts that will be useful in helping Exam Officers analyse themselves, create action plans to build on strengths, work on weaknesses and improve working practices. Paul Lower gave really good information about the use of the School Development Plan for budgeting and how this fits with exams. He made reference to http://www.fmsis.info/ as a useful tool when budgeting and gave useful advice on creating a best and worst case scenario when budgeting in order to establish a best estimate.

My first clinic was the OCR one, because in reality I owed my being at the conference to the team running this clinic. They had contacted me as they wished to know more about using Twitter as a communication tool for Exams Officers, as well as wanting to use my @examsmgr 'tweets' as an example of how Twitter might be used. I did tweet a little during the conference, so if you want to see what happened over the two days search for #EOAConf on Twitter to see what I had to say. Twitter wasn't the only item that was discussed in the workshop, in fact there were a variety of topics including Results Day, OCR Nationals and local training for the administration of Nationals, if you are interested in taking a part in that training – contact the CAST team at OCR.

Steve Sharpley closed the first day by helping everyone to work out the best way to be successful using "mind games", during which we all took time out to learn a breathing exercise to put us back in touch with our bodies.

At the evening CPD workshop Jan Martin and some Exam Officers already enrolled and working on the BTEC qualifications were really positive and sharing in their experiences. It galvanised me to enrol on the course myself.

The gala dinner was a formal occasion with John Cassidy Photography on site to take group photographs as mementos of the evening for those who wished them. The evening was a celebration of the 10 years of EOA, the people that put things in motion and with congratulations to Jan Martin for receiving her much deserved MBE.

Dame Kelly Holmes opened the second day and had us all stretching, clapping and laughing along to her energiser in no time at all. If you were there, do you remember "I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic", to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it"? Dame Holmes then went on to describe her journey to her double gold and how she is applying her commitment to carving out a new career for herself. Those same qualities and strength of characters which she described are what we as Exams Officers need now in the midst of the education changes taking place all around us.

Later I spoke with Roy Waite at the EOA website stand in the marketplace to get a copy of the BTEC prospectus. While I was at it, I picked Roy's brains regarding finding examiners for MFL speaking exams and learned much more than I anticipated. This is just one example of the bonus of being at the conference and being able to engage in conversation with other Exams Officers away from the pressures of the Exams Office.

I enjoyed the Edexcel clinic and made full use of the opportunity to ask David Sands (Head of Service Operations (Region 1)) specific questions about the BTECs, specifically what to do about those students part way through legacy NVQ BTECs. His answers have been worth their weight in gold in the week since the conference. There was opportunity to express an interest in getting involved with the BTEC online bulk-claims process that Edexcel are developing.

QCDA did a very helpful clinic on the new unitised GCSEs and Controlled Assessment. They gave a solid presentation on the pitfalls of managing these GCSEs poorly! I have already put into practice their advice to 'ask teachers which two units they will use for the final assessment of the new GCSEs'.

The conference finished with a slideshow presentation by Andrew Harland the Chief Executive and founder member of the EOA on the organisations journey, giving those tantalising glimpses of the challenges that the founders and early members went through to get to the point the Association is at today.

I left the conference having chatted with, picked the brains of, laughed with, and shared problems with many other Exams Officers. They understood and shared my woes. They gave me suggestions, support and strength to go back to school and take things up to the next level. I definitely want to attend again next year, if you have never been to an EOA Conference, I seriously recommend it.