SteemCampUK 2

@steevc @rod.crisafulli @ashtv at #steemcampuk

Hurrah!

Well there, we did it. UK Steemians spent Saturday together in Leicester talking STEEM. It's always hard managing expectations of an event like this - I have some very low bars for success - I got there, other people got there, we all got to the end of the day having spoken to each other and without any blood being spilled. I know that people who weren't there or people who've never tried to run an event with a tiny community will hum and haw about what they think they might have been able to do better and I really hope that next time they'll get more involved.

It was great for me to work on this with @shanibeer who blogged more consistently than anyone in the run up and handled relations with the venue. It was also really good to have time to talk to her more than I've been able to do at other things in the past. Thanks Shani!

Another thing worth shouting about is that we had a couple more people than had actually booked - this is an unheard of level of commitment in unconference circles, just because there's usually some last-minute reason why people can't make it. So thank you to everyone, however far you came, whatever obstacles you overcame to get there. I shall be adding everyone who booked or attended to the @SteemCampUK autovoter (which is always a good thing to throw some delegated SP at)

The numbers

@pennsif's finding that there are roughly 100 active Steemians across the UK is often quoted. We managed to get 13 of them in one room (in England) together and attracted one newbie. To me the quantity of people doesn't matter as much as the quality of conversations and the connections made. I didn't say this on Saturday but I often quote the formula for connections n(n-1)/2 so among the 14 superstars who came along there were 14*(14-1)/2 = 91 connections to be had if everyone connected with everyone else - which is actually much easier to do when there's only 14 of you than when there's 200.

Of course, I'm looking forward to the day when we have a community of 1000 active Steemians in the UK and we could run a national event for 150 people, but we don't and I'm one for working with what we do have rather than what we wish could be.

Knowing that most people are more invigorated and motivated to bring new people in after events like Saturdays, I believe that one of the ways in which we can grow to 1000 people or more is by doing more of this kind of thing. Not necessarily making it a national thing (there were only a couple of people in the room for whom it was not a long way to come), but seeing how we can build on the sorts of meetups that @redrica does in London that already attract a similar sort of number. So I think SteemCampScotland, SteemCampWales & SteemCampNI would be fab but also SteemCampNorthWest or SteemCampEastAnglia would have legs. Ping me if you want to do this and need some help.

Writing about it

It's tempting to do posts saying "this happened and then this happened and it was cool to meet so-and-so" because yes it was. But I'd encourage you, if you came, to also write here about what conversations you had, what ideas came out of it and what you might do differently now after attending. @ashtv recorded our closing circle in which we all said a little about that and hopefully that'll be in a post soon.

For me, I wanted to talk about "Keeping Going" and what we do to stick with this thing even when rewards are low and interactions are few. I got a lot from hearing @starkerz remind us about adding value to the network and I had a couple of chats with others about rewards that reminded me that I do very well in general. I also remembered, talking to @shanibeer that it's important for us all as creators to talk to each other regularly and not get too insular - it's good to have feedback from people who are in the same boat.

Till next year!