Alright, show of hands, how many of you faithfully read Stirrup Queens? Or at least faithfully read during the month of July? One , two, seven...Ok, everyone. Well then, maybe you remember that the day after Blogher '10 that the ALI bloggers attending the conference and those in the general area will be having a gathering in New York (you can read more about it here). Sadly, I will not be one of them. I noticed from the comments to that post that a lot of you will not either and wish that you could. I think we have an opportunity to make lemonade here ladies (or some Grandma's Lemonade if life has provided any of you vodka with your lemons).
There is no reason for us to feel left out. I propose that on the same day each of us with enough bloggers in our general area host similiar gatherings. Nothing fancy. A picnic in a park or community center. For those of you with only one or two others in your area maybe a coffee date. The point is just to gather and share knowledge and support.
I know that many bloggers, like my mostly anonomous, mid-west, privacy-guarding self, may be leery of meeting IRL. Meeting with others would not require you to reveal any more than you are comfortable with, including additional contact information. However, I do hope that one outcome of all of this would be forming additional supports. This online world is fantastic for information but sometimes we could use something a little more personal and there are those in our section of the blogosphere who unfortunately don't have that right now. I am getting WAY ahead of myself here.
I know that this may be difficult to organize and I also realize that there are probably several areas without more than one ALI blogger and so this idea could be tweaked to include online meetings and chats in the forums that day, or video chats to include outlying bloggers in the gatherings.
Right now this is just an idea and I would love your thoughts on it. Do you think its too big? Too small? Unrealistic? Long overdue? Please leave a comment or email me (kpick3@aol.com) with your thoughts.
7 comments:
I absolutely LOVE the idea. I am a new blogger though, so I don't know much about the big meeting. I don't see why it couldn't happen. There could be a main board where people can sign up to attend or host gatherings in their area. All by choice. I think it would be wonderful. I would love to see these people in real life.
Thank you so much for commenting on my blog. You are so, so sweet.
Sounds like a great idea!
Oh, this is such a cool idea! I wonder if there's a way we could list blogs by city or something like that. It would be so great to make some IRL connctions!
I think it is absolutely brilliant and I'd love to help you organize this. Use the LFCA when it gets closer to help get team captains in certain areas and make it less than a one hour drive for people who want to join along and get together in small bunches. And then we'll figure out a way to virtually connect everyone too :-) Even if it's just a laptop set up with a camera and all of us waving at each other.
We could Skype in groups, too.
Great way to include!
This is a wonderful idea but... I'm in frecking FRANCE!! (Anyone there? Anyone??=)
A brilliant brilliant idea, I say a bunch of you charter a plane and come to me in Cairo, we could have coffee by the pyramids and talk about babies. Seriously though if any meeting is done virtually like on skype I am so there! Although the Cairo offer still stands. - LFCA
Post a Comment