Getgood Guide

Well, it’s been a good long, while, hasn’t it?  I’m not going to do the cliched apologising for the prolonged silence, most people know I’ve been a busy bee.  In early August I left my job with ACE dance and music to join Will Perrin’s talk about local team and spread the hyperlocal love.  And things have been a wonderful whirlwind since then.

But all work and no play makes me really rather dull.  So that’s probably what this blog will start to become – more of a personal place of play.

And I’m going to start off with a game played with Nikki Pugh on her birthday recently.  Nikki decided she wanted to play the game rather than make it for her special day, and who were we to argue?  So after Libby Heighway and Michael Grimes had finished with Nikki in the Nature Centre, they packed her off to me at the graveyard in St Mary’s Church, Moseley.

She found me there waiting with a piece of cake.  It was only after she’d eaten it I told her it wasn’t her cake, but that of the cake-loving ghosts.  So poor Nikki had to find said ghosts going by the clues below and play them a message from their mean Cake Angel.

Can you spot the gravestones of the ghosts in the slideshow?

1. I rode into heaven on my trusty steed.
2. Too young to lay anchor, I swam aweigh to sleep with the fishes.
3. I survived my sister to die on Turkish soil, caught up in the Drama of Dardanelles
4. John and Jane have flown into heaven, their family’s legacy is yellow and sweet.
5. So many of us, we caught Bounder’s bus to heaven.

Luckily, Nikki managed to find them all in time to get to The Fighting Cocks and enjoy a cake that did belong to her, a grand Michael Grimes creation of chocolate, jelly babies and liquorish all-sorts.

I got all the gravestone-name gathering with Ben Whitehouse, when we were thinking about a possible Moseley Barcamp thing that didn’t happen.  But it was a great day, mulling over the encryptions and thinking about the stories behind them, and it gave me some inspiration eventually!

Last week was one of a few milestones for me.  Here they are then:

• We Share Stuff became a limited company.  Congratulations!
• Digbeth is Good turned 1 year old – Pete Ashton’s response when I told him this was, “Christ, has it only been a year?”  Oh yes.  And what a year!  I celebrated with drinks in The Spotted Dog, which drew a smiling ‘where the hell else?!’ from many.
• Moseley Barcamp happened, and was brilliant with, many a debate and great idea springing forth from it.
• On Wednesday I started my once-a-week stint at Meshed Media, where I’ll be helping out for 7 weeks.  I had a lovely first day, spent mostly writing blog posts for West Midlands Dance.  My working flow kept getting interrupted by me realising I was getting paid for blogging, and getting an immense kick out of it.  But I managed to get through my task list all the same. (Always so very satisfying, ticking off the items, isn’t it?) So it was a small but very significant milestone for me, and means I can add West Midlands Dance to the ‘Other places to find me list’.

A while back Julia Higginbottom asked on Twitter who we thought might be deserving of the hash tag #socialsaturday after their name, i.e. who uses Twitter and online networks to create and arrange very real live social situations from drinks down the pub to more formal gatherings.  These are people I’ve come across (in no particular order) who thoroughly deserve it and why:

Ben Whitehouse (@benjibrum)

As well as always being up for meeting for a pint and/or piece of cake, Ben organises the Birmingham Film Group.  He’s also a regular volunteer at the Social Media Surgeries and joined me and the We Share Stuff crew for a very sociable couple of days at the Digital Inclusion Conference, peaking with his fantastic interview of a protester in Parliament Square, That London.  He’s currently working on an emotional tour of Birmingham and, because he’s so sharing and caring, has asked for our input.  Please give him the back the love he so freely gives out with your suggestions!

Michael Grimes (@citizensheep)

He’s just utterly lovely.  So lovely, in fact, that Pete Ashton saw fit to create We Love Michael Grimes, which the Birmingham crew have been only too happy to contribute to.  Michael sees Twitter as a great social tool that can create and reinforce friendships in the real world, and wrote this incredibly touching post explaining how that’s helped him personally.  He’ll be mortified I’ve written this, just as he is when anyone sings his praises.  It’s one of the things that makes him so utterly lovely.

Shona McQuillan (@graphiquillan)

Shona can’t just organise a piss-up in a brewery, she can organise it at the drop of a hat.  A Stetson hat, that is.  First came WxWM for us Brummies not in the exodus to SXSWi, then came its bouncing baby Moseley Barcamp.  But in between the two, because Shona decided she didn’t have quite enough on her plate organising barcamps and creating beautiful art, is WxWM2: Sue Ellen’s Almighty Hangover.  It will be an almighty hangover if tonight’s tweets are anything to go by.  It’s ten hours away yet but she’s already started on the cider. Go on.

Nikki Pugh (@genzaichi) and Charlie Pinder (@pindec)

Sorry to lump these two together, as I’m sure they do amazing things separately, but they’re here for the fun and games that are BARG and the Birmingham Hack Space (along with Antonio Roberts and Midge).  Come and play!

Nick Booth (@podnosh)

A lovely, sociable guy who shares the love and knowledge with Social Media Surgeries for Birmingham charities and voluntary groups, organising the Brumbloggers into passing on their knowledge on a monthly basis.

Karen Strunks (@karenstrunks)

Getting social on global scale with her magical 4am Project, which had photographers up at that ungodly hour snapping away before, in Birmingham’s case, eating gargantuan breakfasts.  Also responsible for a Twitter Flashmob.  Karen always seems to be thinking up imaginative ideas to get people connecting online together in the real world.

I’m sure I’ve missed people out, please feel free to comment any omissions.  In fact, I’ve just thought of another one:

Me (@getgood)

Being a pale imitation of those above and jumping on the bandwagon by organising an outing to Friction Arts’ Echoes From The Edge this Saturday 31st May at 2pm, which I’ve been to before but am going back for more because I loved it so much.  Please let me know if you’d like to come!