I’m sure I have other things that I *possibly* should be doing at 11.15pm on a Thursday night but instead I’m sat here in bed with Thriller playing on Spotify (Thank you Throwback Thursday again. Some of the tunes today are a little questionable but others are okay).
Anyway back to the topic in hand. So today was BedsHour Tweetup. I think the organisational team this time were Paul from White Label Development and James from Cooluxart both here in Bedford.
During the afternoon while tweeting about the Tweetup and generally tweetin other BedsHour regulars, I attempted to make some little stickers. I tweeted about the stickers and Julia from Julia V Design replied asking for a peek so me being me had to go the further stage and get some made to take with me. I’m not sure how copyright works for something the Twitter logo so that could be interesting if I ever branched into selling my made stickers but that’s another bridge to cross one day. Too many things to be doing st once at the moment anyway.
Having printed the stickers and dashed off to Slimming World to get weighed in, I dashed home again and somewhere between showering, changing my clothes and speaking to the boys, I managed to get one sheet of stickers completely cut before I needed to leave the house in a bit of a flap. (the second sheet didn’t entirely cut so if you’re a BedsHour person who didn’t get a sticker let me know).
I decided to wear my “smart” trainers which are no good for running in so when I dashed across the park as I was running late they were making my feet hurt. Not a good start to the evening at all. I arrived and people were still arrivn g so I wasn’t as late as I actually though I was.
I abandoned my handbag and other bits on one of the chairs while I got myself unflustered as Lucy from Mrs Bishop’s Bake and Banter arrived and we had a good natter catching up. We were joined by Holly who does Social Media for D’Parys and got talking about all sorts of things. I also delivered a present to Lucy and another to Paul. (Paul’s present was his Secret Santa, well I guess May is better than never!)
At the moment in The Pavilion they have these banners from Lose The Label on display. Lose the Label is about:
Educating and updating social attitudes helping society adopt a new language and more positive terms of references for people with Down’s Syndrome.
I think my favourite is this one of Amos and his Mummy Emma. Love babywearing – think I will be sad when Jaxon no longer wants to be carried or when I can no longer carry him. I love when he snuggles into me and know he can nap or just hang out safely. I’m so pleased I found babywearing.
We were each given a name badge that had our Twitter handle and our names on the front along with various other pieces of information including icebreaker questions and a little Angry Bird to identify which “group” we were with to start with when it came to seating.
Lucy, Holly and I all had the little Red Angry Bird. We were joined by Cat from Cat Lane Photography, Claire from Austism Beds and Ann from Pink Spaghetti PA Services. Some of us had met for the first time whereas others have spent time working together but I don’t think you would have been able to tell we were all chatting away like a bunch of old friends.
We had pizza for our main course as we were the mainly vegetarian table we ended up with two goats cheese and caramelised onion pizza which normally wouldn’t have been something I would have picked for myself but the sweetne s of the caramelised onions was really yummy. We then got a ham pizza too so us meat eaters could catch up! The pizza and cheesecake theme had actually come out of a Beds Hour conversation. I think it was started when I tweeted about Chris making a Slimming World cheesecake for me and I had a bowl of the cheesecake in front of me while joining in with BedsHour that particular week!
Following dinner we had an introductions session so people took turns to stand up and give a quick elevator pitch about themselves/their business. James from Cooluxart went first followed by Paul. They were both talking about the benefits of BedsHour and how both their businesses have developed out of meeting people through it. I decided to take my turn and get up and speak about Daisy Media. My heart was banging somewhere around my tonsils as I spoke and then got all shy when I talked about my homemade stickers but I did it. I know if I’d stayed in my chair I’d be kicking myself for not taking the opportunity when it was there on a plate. I just need to practice my elevator pitch for next time.
So here’s to BedsHour and our latest TweetUp. Lucy talked about how lucky we are to have such a good network of people in Bedford. BedsHour is this great group of small businesses and even when the people are coming from bigger businesses they still try and help people out which is great. I look forward to collaborating with more of the BedsHour guys. Just need to figure out how!
Do you join in with a social networking hour for your local area? What do you think of it?
Bonus questions from my badge: What crazy activities do you dream of trying? How do you like to spend a rainy day?
