Now that it& #39;s coming to an end, I was honestly really impressed with virtual conference.

FCC must have put an insane amount of work in to pull it off so big thank you to all of them https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👏" title="Applaus-Zeichen" aria-label="Emoji: Applaus-Zeichen">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👏" title="Applaus-Zeichen" aria-label="Emoji: Applaus-Zeichen">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👏" title="Applaus-Zeichen" aria-label="Emoji: Applaus-Zeichen">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👏" title="Applaus-Zeichen" aria-label="Emoji: Applaus-Zeichen">

The question now is what possibilities for the future does it open up.

Apparently ~3% of members registered for conference which is a lot at this stage in the electoral cycle, and given how much cheaper it was to attend I& #39;d expect those numbers to skew younger and poorer than the normal attendance. That& #39;s GREAT for making good policy.

That said, it will have been inaccessible for different people and it wasn& #39;t the same without running into people in the bar. Its not going to replace in person conf. But I& #39;d love to see us do hybrid in future, and see what & #39;going digital& #39; allows us to do.

We& #39;ve had a problem in the party for ages where we get clogged up with policy - everything needing to be debated at conf means there isn& #39;t always enough time available to get through the policy we need and end up with outdated policy.

That& #39;s especially problematic when we just need a small change to policy, which is rarely accepted by FCC because they (reasonably) don& #39;t see it as a priority when time is scarce, or when it& #39;s a niche/unsexy topic (foreign affairs issues are hard to get on the agenda)

Meanwhile we end up paying £££ for a big fancy auditorium so that 10 members and a dog can spend 40 mins debating F47 Support To Motherhood And Apple Pie. Which is a terrible use of scarce resources.

Are there ways we can use this approach to solve some of those problems?

E.g.: run motherhood and apple pie debates online-only overlapping with setpiece Hall events like spokesperson Q&As

Or more frequent & #39;conferences& #39; online-only through the year to get through more policy

Long term, could we drop the (loss making) spring conf/take it online-only? Given that autumn is south coast and spring is north, that would have regional implications - but can they be overcome? If we& #39;re not making a loss on spring, does that give us more leeway in autum?

Exciting* times all round. But I& #39;m a happy Lib Dem this week and I feel like there are possibilities ahead.

* for some values of & #39;exciting& #39;