Adelaide Social Web Media End-of-Year Meet-up Report

The local Adelaide bloggers/micro-bloggers group that I help to organise had our fifth and final meet-up of the year at Jim Manning's beautiful home. There were a few "firsts" during this get-together, including:

• Holding a BBQ in one of the member's residence. We've always held our meet-ups in restaurants/pubs, so it was interesting to see the difference in dynamics with a change in venue.
• Having our first event sponsor - Kirrihill Wines - who contributed a great selection of wines for our wine-loving members.
• Getting family of group members involved/invited to our event. That's why I brought my hubby and kids for the first time to meet the group. So, it's also a first to have kids running around while we tried to talk and to eat. 😀
• Janette Toral (another group member) has sort of held an Adelaide soft-launch of her book, Blogging from Home, during the get-together. And, she even gave some copies to attendees. Yay! In fact, you can see me in the collage holding a copy of her book.
• Receiving a live on-the-air shout-out for our group and meet-up during a 5aa radio show with Steve Davis, one of our members. w00t!

Of course, it was also great to meet a few folks for the first time like Jen (w/JJ), Geoffrey, James, Bruce, and Matt from Kirrihill, as well as the family members of long-time attendees - Melissa and Charlie. Also good to see Bridie again, and to finally get Simon to show up in a meet-up.

Too bad I missed our good friend Steve D, who went to the party after I had to go home. But, at least I was there when he mentioned our group during his radio show. Thanks for that, Steve! 🙂

And, if I were to give out meet-up awards, I'd love to give a special mention to Kay Walker, Steve Thomas, Melissa Williams, Steve Davis, Jim Manning, and Charlie Robinson for having attended 4 out of the 5 meet-ups of the year. You guys rock! Thanks sooo much for helping to make this happen.

So yeah, it was a great way to end the year's meet-ups. Again, thank you to all who took part in our 2008 meet-ups. Hopefully, we'll be able to do more in 2009. And perhaps, even better! In fact, I've been talking to a few folks already about the different ways we can make next year's meet-ups even bigger and better. So, let's see how we can make it all happen.

Photo credit: All photos are mine, except for the last 2 at the bottom where you can see me. Those were taken by Janette Toral and re-posted with permission. Thanks, Janette!