For those of you who follow some of the main accounts within our industry on Twitter, you will have seen this hashtag knocking about: #FSTNM. This stood for FiT Show Tweet N Meet. It was a hashtag developed to promote a gathering of industry people via Twitter on Tuesday evening at the Holiday Inn hotel bar in Telford. It was fair to say that the evening was a success.
Dozens and dozens of people who would normally only speak online all met in one place to finally put some names to faces, have a drink, relax and just have some fun. Even the non-tweeters who were staying in the same hotel joined everyone in the festivities. It was a fantastic evening with a great buzz in the bar and lots of new people mixing in the same crowd.
The feedback since has been overwhelmingly positive since that evening, with many demanding that we all bang our heads together and organise another one as soon as possible!
What was great about that evening was through the power of social media, a growing bunch of genuinely nice people all met up to finally say hello to each other in person. To have a few drinks, let their hair down and enjoy the company of like-minded people. And believe it or not, not much window and door talk went on either! We all work very hard in our jobs day in day out, and I believe we all probably don’t enjoy ourselves as much as we should, I know I don’t. Soph tells me all the time!
So, after speaking with a few who attended #FSTNM last Tuesday, it’s clear that there is a demand for another one. The key things to consider are location and transport. In the interest of fairness, I think it’s only right for the location to be roughly a couple of hours away from most people. Derby has been brought up as a possible candidate city, as has Milton Keynes. Birmingham would also make for a good location. Rail links from most parts of the country, especially the south, are very good, with most train journeys to Birmingham around a couple of hours or less. Unless you live near the location, taking the train might be a good idea. It would save having to drive home hungover the day after! Personally I like Birmingham, but that’s just me. Please let us all know using the comments section your suggestions. We’ll all try and decide on the fairest possible place.
On to timings then. Myself and Dean (@bigwindowfitter) explored the possibility of around October time. I think it would be best to capitalise on the success and energy of the first one to have the next on this side of Christmas. It would also be on a Saturday. It can be inconvenient to take a day or two out of the busy working week, and to take it off to go drinking isn’t probably the best excuse to give to your bosses! Again, opinions on this very much sought after. Please let everyone know if you think it should be in a different month. Sooner? Later? On a weekend or a weekday? We all just want to make sure that as many people as possible can be free to come.
Once we have all landed on a place and date, we can talk about hotels and what would be the best place for everyone to stay over night for those who do want to stay over.
So far, there have been a number of potential hashtags trialed on Twitter so far, but the one that looks like it could work best is: #TNMP2 = Tweet N Meet Part 2.
But the key to all of this to just have a great night. There is a great and growing group of industry people online who support each other brilliantly, comment on posts, retweet each other, help each other out and generally keep the mood online happy and jovial. These are nights out to simply enjoy getting together as a group from all over the country and having a right good old knees up!
Whether you are a tweeter or not, everyone is welcome! Just let everyone know that you’re coming by using the hashtag above!
All comments and feedback welcome in the section below.
