I stood in my hotel room, staring at myself in the mirror brushing my hair wondering if I looked ok, would people like me? I have spoken to these people on twitter and via blogs for around 10 months now. They know a lot of intimate details, I haven’t shared with “real life people”, I know stuff about them. But, really what if they don’t like me….I had been so busy booking the hotel, trains, theatre, etc hadn’t had a chance to think about it. I won the ticket through a secret donation over at Sian’s blog Mummy-Tips and I can’t thank the donators or Sian enough. Without them, I wouldn’t have had this amazing experience.
I took a deep breath and walked into the lobby of the Ibis hotel, where the first conference for the UK parent bloggers was being held, Cybermummy. I look around and saw a few women talking, I went and said hello. Yes, they were fellow mummy bloggers, we instantly had something in common, we were all a little nervous and unsure of what was to come. But mainly we were excited and couldn’t wait to begin our journey.
I saw the lovely babygenie we have been tweeted for some time and she wrote the nicest thing ever about me, only the night before on her blog. I ran over and gave her a big hug, thankfully after wondering who the crazy lady was, she realised it was me. I think several of my lovely blogger friends thought the same thing about me. I must thank the organisers for this wonderful day Sian @mummytips, Susanna @amodernmother and Jen @jhowze. How they did it, I will never know. A lot of alcohol I think.
The rooms looked great, the main room had the pr stuff and the most amazing cup cakes. I mean amazing. Then there was room one for the conference. Sian was first up. The talks were great, really interesting and I learned a lot. Several things struck home for me, be yourself, write what you want to read, hook from the start. The designer from Glam Media, had a lot of really useful tips, which I will be following up on. It was also really interesting to hear about from the PR people and about advertising on your blog, something I don’t know much about. I understand know how much we can help promote a product we are passionate about. But you need to be honest and PR people appreciate your honesty. The lovely Gail @bumblingtweets gave a really interesting talk on the legalities of blogging, it was really interesting to hear about what you can and can’t put out there.
Lunch and breaks were taken up by either going round the PR tables, LeapFrog were my favourite some fantastic products there or chatting with my new found real life friends. Emma @jumblymummy was so sweet, but I mainly hung out with Gail and Catherine. I know we will be friends for life.
I met so many new bloggers, whom were lovely and we swapped cards. I’m looking forward to checking out the new blogs. There was a form of speed dating at the start, without the actual dating part, because that would have been wrong. It was a fantastic ice-breaker.
The keynote blog posts at the end were emotional, inspirational and funny. There was not a dry eye in the room by the time, these talented and inspiration women had finished reading their blog posts. They were amazing.
There were several bloggers I was desperate to meet, I made sure I stalked them out as soon as possible. Yes, I was the crazy lady tilting my head to read the badges at everyone’s stomach. I even went up to someone calling them someone else’s name, thanks to the person who tweeted me saying I’m wearing a black dress and purple flipflops, who knew there were more than one. I did spend about 1 hour trying to find @singlemummynet to find out she was sitting at my table all along. That was very funny.
Everyone was lovely, what I found most interesting is that everyone is as lovely in real life as they are in cyber life. Josie @porrigebrain is as hyper and sunshine pour from her in real life too, Jay @cosmicgirlie jumps about with her camera I now call her paparazzi cossi, Sian @mummytips she was like a celeb, Tara and Rosie were just like what I imagined. There are so many I want to mention here but I could be here all night. But really everyone is amazing in their own way.
There were a few bloggers/twitter friends whom didn’t make it to cybermummy for various reasons, but there was one person in particular I wanted to meet and that was Sarah @yummyNo1. She did a lovely post about not going to cybermummy. One day we will all meet our long lost cyber buddies.
All in all, it was great to meet everyone, we swapped cards, had a laugh, shared some tears and some drinks. Some crackers, conditioners, chips and breast pads were used in ways I’m sure there were never intended for, but did provide much hilarity in the bar later on. The only bad point, it wasn’t long enough….
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