catalyst

The newest addition to the Ruthven family shot into this world with great gusto and enthusasim on Thursday morning. Dad was in great shock at being woken up at 2:20 am, when contractions began, then a mere 2 hours later at 4:32 holding his son - Adam Ruthven. Mum was in even greater shock at arriving at the hospital to be told that she was ready to push!

Mum & Dad are both incredibly proud of Adam, weighing in at 3.6kg (7lb 15oz).

Dad & Brooke brought Mum & Adam home on Friday morning, where we've had to readjust to once again having sleep deprivation.

Brooke is thoroughly enjoying having a baby brother. She is being a perfect big sister, helping us care for Adam, even helping with nappy changes! (We're hopeful this will continue...)

Wow, has it really been two months since the last blog post? No wonder, we've been flat out!

• Announced our second keynoter - Nat Torkington
• Call for papers closed
• Announced the successful miniconfs
• The Paper Review Committee started the paper review process of our over 300 paper submissions.
• Published our accommodation options
• The Paper Review Committee had a face-to-face meeting in Sydney
• Announced our third and fourth keynotes - Gabriella Coleman and Glyn Moody.
• The accepted talks were scheduled
• We released a new logo, with a competition and 20 hours later gave away a hobbyist ticket to Mark Piper
• Call for Miniconf Papers opened
• Three Funding programmes were finalised and then announced
• And then on Monday, we released the talk schedule

Busy times, and it is only going to get busier, when I first wrote this article on Monday, Susanne was 39 weeks pregnant, not long to go now on that front... It turns out I was right, she gave birth to Adam Robert Ruthven this morning. More news to follow soon.