Come to the pub on Tuesday 14th April, come anytime from 6pm and leave whenever you want to, or when the landlord kindly asks you to.
Bring good humour, Ben has promised cake.
(see here for how we work out when bloggers’ meet-ups are)
Last year the organised of Blog Action Day invited people to add a post to their blog about the environment, it was a huge success in terms of numbers. Blog Action Day is:
Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.
This year the theme is poverty. While I’d encourage everyone to sign up and commit to writing a post from their own blog’s angle (just go over to the site and sign up) I’ve talked to a few other people and thought that it might be nice to have a co-ordninated effort from Brum.
Maybe we could pick a local organisation to focus on, get them some google juice, maybe even help them a little with getting into the social web as an organisation.
We’ve got ten days, so shall we have a talk about what we could do? Anyone got an organisation in mind?
Shall we say Thurs 28th at a suitable location?
After a few twitter soundings I’ve stuck a pin in the 23rd of July for a meet-up this here month. As last months “turn up when the hell you like” worked well I vote we stick to it (there was a good spread of people, some from around 6, the majority there at 8 or thereabouts).
Sorry to those that can’t make it, we’ll see you soon (btw, is this a good argument for moving things round, so people who “can’t do Thursdays” etc. can come every so often, or would a more rigid time suit?).
The Malt House (beloved of William Jefferson Clinton) gets a stormingly bad review here: which means it’ll be nice and empty and easy to take over.
A good few of the bloggers will have been to WordCampUK over the weekend before, so if you’d like WordPressy questions answered this meet-up might be a good time.
Facebook Event
Upcoming Event
When we came up with the bright idea of having a picnic in Moseley Private Park for the next meeting during the 3-day heatwave of early May, we didn’t foresee being in the middle of a wetwave, so hastily made a backup plan of the Prince of Wales.
As well as myself, the following people also turned up at various points during the evening (in approx order of appearance):
Nick Booth, Jon Bounds, Clare Edwards, Simon Gray, Andy Mabbett, Mark Steadman, Kevin Rapley, Danny Smith, Matt ?, Stuart ?, Ana Milgram, Nikki Pugh, Chris Unitt and friend, Stef Lewandowski, Emma Jones, Antonio Gould and friend, two random Polish ladies and Caroline Charlton. (Feel free to fill in the gaps peeps)
The venue was quite good because it has a back room which was a good size for the group with room to grow a little. Drinks selection and prices were good. They serve food and also have a kind of delicatessen out back which is quite incongruous, but good nevertheless. The management are friendly. The day we went, a Wednesday, happened to be quiz night, which we took part in and was quite fun, we even got a curry chucked in with the £1 entry fee. No public wifi. There’s a bit of free parking on the road in the evenings.
As well as the usual general meeting interesting people and socialising, the following ideas came out of the meeting:
This website, Paradise Circus.
Jon reckoned that technology is just about ready for a live phone-in show on the web. Mark, Danny and Kevin agreed and they’re hoping to get together soon. It will no doubt be very rude!
Stuart chatted to people about wanting to break down divides around the use of social media by adults.
We learnt a Polish song about drinking too much beer that went something like “Storya! Storya!”
Please add anything I’ve missed in the comments. I’ve created a new WordPress Page to put venue reviews as this could be a really useful resource. Any Pages (as opposed to individual Posts) could act as a wiki, ask if you want a login.
Groups of Birmingham Bloggers have been meeting in a kinda formal/informal way for a few months now. Mostly orgainised around the Facebook group, which has worked — up to a point.
Facebook is sort of broken at the moment (for this sort of thing, for this group) because:
I (me, Jon) resisted a website for the group because I thought that it wasn’t as democratic as using FB, but talking to Andy Mabbett and Stef Lewandowski (amongst others) at the meet-up in the Prince last night I realised I was being a bit odd. So, any Brum (or nearby) Blogger is welcome to admin rights to this site. dm me on twitter/email with email address for your very own account.
So why Paradise Circus? Well, since the very beginning of meeting up we’ve not been happy with the “Birmingham Bloggers” term. Some thought that it excluded other with not-so-much blogging social media activities (podcasters, heavy flickr users, tweeters, and so on), Birmingham is a little odd as a term too as most people don’t blog about brum (and there are a few wider WM attendees), and Danny Smith hated the word blogger.
Yeah, but why Paradise Circus? It’s nice, it sounds like a lovely and lively mess of things happening, it radiates democratic love, it’s uptopian, it’s a lovely big road island, it’s a Lilac Time album. And if/when the council (with architectural vandalism aforethought) knock the current building (pictured left) down we might be able to flog the URL to new corporate owners…
Site is totally unfinished, comments, suggestions (page with free wifi map on?), help, more posts… well, join up and get going.
Join in — use this space to talk about anything web-ish in Brum. You can sign up for yourself on the talk-board (Paradise Forum), or if you want to blog drop us a line.
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