Ann Bartlett

The 70-year-old party member from Poole, in Dorset, praised the Lib Dem leader's performance.

"All his speeches are pretty good.

"His message was that we are the party of democracy, that we want to serve the people not to dominate them and we've got a much better chance of getting more MPs than we've ever had."

Mrs Bartlett said she believed Mr Kennedy was "growing in stature".

"He looks a lot better too, maybe that's being married and I think we understand him better than other people do - we know him, a lot of people don't know him like we do."

She cited the by-election victory in Brent East of Sarah Teather as her conference highlight.

"She caused so much excitement it buoyed it up."

Gerry Lewis

The five times parliamentary candidate from Dudley proclaimed Mr Kennedy's speech "excellent" and "inspirational".

The 77-year-old said: "It gives us confidence to go back into the constituency and fight all the more to get more local councillors and people into parliament.

"I think it was one of his best speeches."

Mr Lewis said he felt Mr Kennedy's central message was that the Lib Dems now had a good chance to push for second place and then eventually government.

"I think he's excellent. He's an excellent leader I don't understand why some people should have any reservations."

Mr Lewis said his conference highlight was the party leader's speech.

Liz Shard

Ms Shard, 33, from Kingston-upon-Thames, said she was pleased Mr Kennedy had highlighted the party's plan to scrap the council tax.

"The speech was nice and uplifting especially with Sarah Teather in Brent East and that gave the whole conference a really good winning edge."

She said that her conference highlight was the question and answer session with Mr Kennedy earlier in the week.

"It's less formulaic than the set speech and people could actually ask questions that they wanted real answers to.

"What I liked about that session was that Charles came across as relaxed and natural."

She said Mr Kennedy was already popular with the electorate because he came across as honest and genuine and predicted the Lib Dems would double their seats at the next election.

Billy Barton

The 28-year-old from Norwich said that the Lib Dem leader had struck a balance between being "rightly ambitious but at the same time realistic".

"He focused on the disgraceful way the government and, if fact, worse so the Tories have behaved over the Iraq issue and he also stressed that there are certain things we prioritise even though they are not necessarily popular such as gay rights, and the rights of asylum seekers."

Mr Barton predicted that the Lib Dems would unseat Education Secretary Charles Clarke at the next election.

"Charles Clarke watch out. A swing like we got in Brent East would give us a huge majority in Norwich South - obviously that was special circumstances.

"If I was Charles Clarke I would be very worried indeed."

Shirley Wilcock

Ms Wilcox, 48, said that she thought Mr Kennedy had made a great speech which she found "inspiring".

The party member from Saffron Walden said: "Probably the best policy decision of this conference was scrapping council tax. We've obviously been very buoyant about Brent East.

"It quite a good start to the conference and quite a good finish to the conference. I've gone away enthused and hopefully so has everybody else."

Ms Wilcox that it was important for the party to continue to deliver "credible messages".

"The other parties are not giving credible messages and they are inconsistent."

"Iain Duncan Smith is not giving a credible performance and unless they change their leader overtaking the Tories is there for the taking."

Nasser Butt

The parliamentary hopeful for the Mole Valley constituency said he too was pleased with Mr Kennedy's performance.

"He had a quiet period in people's perception in the early part of the summer and he came out in the Brent election everyday and he came out today with a very strong speech, very strong messages picking up all the strands of what we stand for."

Mr Butt, 45, said his conference highlight was the emotional speech by the father of British Guantanamo Bay intern Moazzam Begg.

"He's been locked up in a place where he doesn't see the sun and the moon for days and months and has had no opportunity to defend himself."