Last weekend I attended my first barcamp ‘unconference’ in Bath called, unsurprisingly, Bathcamp.
It was absolutely brilliant.
There were around 60 attendees a number of whom are now listed on the bathcamp blog and the split was around 70%/30% web geeks and educational/knowledge management types.
There were three areas at the venue and the talks varied from the more standard technical web development techniques (which I mainly attended) to how to make a good Espresso and my personal favourite which was Frankie Roberto’s dead-pan delve into the world of the serious Lego geek.
Siftware sponsored the booze for the evening at the venue and I put on a ‘tub quiz’ with prizes, amongst others, of a $50,000,000,000 note. The quiz seemed to go down rather well; I know I enjoyed putting it together.
Kudos to the organisers of the event whose forward planning ensured the weekend went very smoothly. A particularly big shout out to Mike Ellis, Tim Beadle, Frankie Roberto, Lisa Price & Steve Pope who I’m sure didn’t sit down for the 2 days.
I made some great new friends, put faces to names I’ve known for 10 years and have not laughed so much in ages (you know who you are!). Overall I came away on Sunday feeling inspired and with that warm glow you get after putting another good time in the bank.
Go Bathcamp.
A few other attendees have blogged about the day or posted their slides. I’ll add them to this list as and when I get the links:
- Matt Jukes: http://backpass.org/2008/09/16/briliant-bathcamp/
- Keir Whitaker: http://www.fiveandlime.com/journal/2008/09/14/10-reasons-you-should-try-django (annoyed I missed this one)
- Drew Jones: http://andij.com/2008/09/07/sfimagetransform-presentation
- Jack Martin Leith: http://www.jackmartinleith.com/?p=1237
- Sam Downie: http://bristol-sounds.com/dsoundzmedia/?p=99
- Frankie Roberto: http://www.frankieroberto.com/weblog/881
- Mia Ridge: http://openobjects.blogspot.com/2008/09/bathcamp-report.html
- Mike Ellis: http://electronicmuseum.org.uk/2008/09/23/that-wasbathcamp-2008/
Addendum:
Here’s the quiz slides with answers, as requested by a few people. Apparently it was too hard?
Here’s the answer sheet.
Glad you liked the event (and liked my talk)! I’m really pleased that people for whom it was their first BarCamp and those who had been to loads before both seemed to get a lot out of it.
Thanks for putting together the link list too - I hadn’t seen all of those. My write-up is here: http://www.frankieroberto.com/weblog/881.
I wish my team had done better at the quiz though - those questions were tough!
Comment by Frankie Roberto — September 19, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
fantastic job at the quiz Darren
good write up, am now finishing my write-up (at last).
Come to http://www.igfest.org and http://www.thebristolfestival.org
Thanks
there’s a new podcast episode up at:
http://www.bristol-sounds.com
Comment by Sam Downie — September 19, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
It was good catching up with you at BathCamp. Sorry I missed your quiz, I had to get home for my baby duties. Will you be posting your questions, I would be interested to see if I could answer any!
I hope my slides make sense, happy to point you in the direction of some good Django tutorials if you fancy a play around.
Hope the “plan” works out for you, it sounds great.
Comment by Keir Whitaker — September 21, 2008 @ 7:53 am
Thanks for running the quiz!
I’ve finally written up my notes: http://openobjects.blogspot.com/2008/09/bathcamp-report.html
Comment by Mia — September 21, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
[...] particularly like to thank.. Darren Beale of Siftware who went waaay beyond the call of duty by not only sponsoring but also helping us shift [...]
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