BBYO National Convention & Aftermath, 30 December 1979 to 3 January 1980

I have very few specific memories of the 1979/1980 BBYO National convention.

One reason for my dearth of memories from that particular convention is a complete absence of photographs. I have hundreds of photographs from the previous year’s convention – click here or below for the Ogblog article and links…

…but I have not a single photograph from the 1979/1980 convention. If anyone reading this piece has photos…even one photo…from that convention, it would be great to see it and/or add it to this Ogblog piece.

Of course, I do have my diaries, but – as was my habit with large scale BBYO events such as conventions – I considered them, at the time, to be such memorable events that I needn’t write down any details about them.

Below is the sum total of my scribbling for the three days 30 December 1979 to 1 January 1980:

…got up very early in morn, set off for convention. Great time at convention, saw in new year… …GREAT DAY. GOT ELECTED AS NATIONAL RESOURCE.

Yet, despite the lack of memories and writing, the 1979/1980 Convention was a momentous event for me. I was elected onto the National Executive for 1980 (I had been co-opted onto the National Exec to edit the magazine for the second half of 1979, but that’s not the same thing as getting elected).

So let me try to delve the memory bank. The National Executive for 1980 had been scaled right back – the feeling being that most day-to-day responsibility should be devolved to the regions and thus a smaller National Executive could be a more strategic or policy-oriented body.

1980, I think, proved this scaled-down executive idea to be flawed for BBYO in Great Britain and Ireland, but the upshot for the 1979/1980 convention was that there were only three posts up for election that year, rather than the usual 6 to 8 posts.

Jay Marks was elected National President.

Jay Marks, Spring 1979. If you could look that cool, you could be National President.

Ivor Heller, my fellow Streathamista, was elected National Vice-President:

Ivor Heller, Spring 1979, enjoying a goodness-knows-what moment with Helen Lewis from Oxford
Incontrovertible evidence that the mystery woman above is Helen Lewis, plus a rare picture of Rebecca Lowi, the BBYO full-timer, chatting with Ivor, Spring 1979

The third and final election that year was for National Resources Officer, which was a combination of several former portfolios such as welfare, programmes, Soviet Jewry and perhaps a couple of others. I remember so little about how the elections worked. I think a candidate had to be proposed and seconded by an elector. Each group that was fully constituted (i.e. had a charter) had two electors. I think candidates simply made a short speech of self-advocacy and the electors then voted.

I don’t recall preparing myself for an election battle in any meaningful way. I think the influencers from the outgoing committee had decided that I had done enough in four or five months of magazine editing to justify supporting me for this expanded and complex portfolio. Anyway, I somehow succeeded in convincing enough electors that a bit of magazine writing and editing qualified me for the task…

…which would be a bit like assuming that a political sketch writer and former editor of a political magazine should be elected to a great political office of state…oh cripes!

We joined those already on the National Executive who would remain; Paul Dewinter (Southern Region President), Raymond Ingleby (Northern Region President) and Jeffrey Spector, who was to stay on as immediate past National President after saying goodbye to formal office.

Of course, conventions are also about goodbyes as well as hellos. This convention marked the end of Jeffrey Spector’s Presidency and indeed the end of two very successful years on the National Executive in his case.

Jeff Spector, Spring 1979

Writing forty years after this convention (in January 2020) and nearly five years after Jeffrey’s premature death, his memory lives on powerfully in my mind and I’m sure in the minds of most who knew him.

Jeffrey will have been honoured with life membership of BBYO at this convention, as would several other stalwarts. I don’t remember all the names, but I’m pretty sure Richard Marks, Tania Silverman and Neil Hyman were amongst them.

Of course there will have been interesting events for us all to enjoy. There will have been singing, dancing, skit competitions and a heck of a lot of spirited stuff. We had the spirit all right.

But in truth, I do not remember any specific stuff of that kind from this convention. I’d love to hear from people who have some very specific memories from this one.

But I do have one very clear memory from the aftermath of convention. It is described in my diary a bit but I do also remember it clearly.

Wednesday 2 January – Really late night. GREAT DAY. Returned, went straight back out to Hillel top stay with…

Thursday 3 January – …Dubliners. Saw off in the morning. Got a lot of admin done.

Yes, something went awry with the travel plans for the Dublin contingent on 2 January – presumably they missed their train or were informed that they would not get to Holyhead in time for the last ferry or something.

Anyone who ever went to one of these conventions will know how tired I must have been when I got home, but I had barely put down my bags when I got the call to please come to Hillel House and stay the night. The authorities there were refusing to give the Dublin BBYO contingent (I think it was 10 to 15 people) sanctuary unless someone suitably senior stayed with them to ensure that there would be no trouble.

So I grabbed my sleeping bag and headed off to Euston for the night, where I joined some very grateful Dubliners in a large room that I think was normally used for functions…

…it will have been good training for Janie’s and my Crisis Christmas forty years later:

I’m amused also to read my comment about “getting a lot of admin done” while at Hillel on 3 January. However tired I must have been after seeing off the Dubliners, I was clearly awake and motivated enough to get started on my new portfolio that very day. The 57-year-old me is awarding the 17-year-old me top marks for effort there.

The Dubliners, being a warm and generous lot, sent me a lovely thank you and gift voucher when they returned to Dublin. I think David Lapedus was the ringleader of that kind gesture.

With the voucher, I treated myself to a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, which has been my writing companion for the 40 years since…

“A thesaurus is great. There’s no other word for it” – Ross Smith

…OK, in the last few years, on-line synonym finders tend to do the job, but for several decades the well-thumbed (but also lovingly preserved) book, depicted above, was my constant companion on my all-too-regular writing occasions. Certainly for all the books (so far) – click here to see all of those in a row.

The sight of my Roget’s Thesaurus would often make me think of that convention and in particular that additional night with the Dubliners at Hillel House.

A BBYO convention is great. There’s no other word for it.

Postscript: Jay Marks responded to my shout out for more memories and/or materials in tremendous style – thanks in the most part to his mum. I have annexed – link here and below – a wonderful magazine piece from the Jewish Chronicle at the time, preserved by Jay’s mum and sent through via Facebook by Jay;

3 thoughts on “BBYO National Convention & Aftermath, 30 December 1979 to 3 January 1980”

  1. I have been trawling the net for memories of my time at bbyo conference in oxford.
    Problem is i cant remember the year iwas there.
    I do believe it was either 78 or 79.
    I remember the dining hall and my meeting with a girl who was helping with organisation called jenni council who was a friend of helen (cant remember her full name?)
    I was indeed head over heels with jenni (was the age😊) sadly we lost touch.
    Maybe you have something or someone to jog the old memory.
    Needless to say they were fantastic times.
    Thanks

    1. Many thanks for your message, Mitchell.

      You can see Helen Lewis depicted in a couple of the pictures in the piece upon which you have commented. I have a great many pictures from that era – the following link is a picture with Jenny depicted, taken early April 1979 – the album in which you will find it has several hundred BBYO photos from that era.

      https://www.flickr.com/photos/ianlharris/8528817712/in/album-72157637996293935/

      I was on the National Executive by autumn 1979 and stopped taking photos.

      National convention was held elsewhere throughout the period you describe (1976/77 – before my time too – was the last of those in Oxford). 1978 Southern Region convention was certainly in Brighton. Unfortunately my diary does not record where I went to Southern Region convention in Autumn 1979 or Autumn 1980 – just that I went to them both. Jenny Council and Helen Lewis for sure were still involved with BBYO at that time.

      Thanks also for your “crush confessional” note – I get far too few of those on Ogblog. Jenny was/is a lovely lass so no shame in that.

      There is a BBYO alumni group for that era on Facebook – if you send me your FB details privately I can invite you to join it if you wish.

      Very best wishes to you, Mitchell.

Comments on Ogblog pieces are always welcome - please write something below if you wish.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.