I’ve been using twitter since June this year and have enjoyed it’s beneficial impact on my photography business. Over the months I have built up a good following of people, made some great connections and enjoy regular chats and banter with other users. I used Twitter to successfully launch my Cumbrian Men Photography Campaign and have been a guest on BBC Radio Cumbria to talk about Twitter.
There are lots of us in Cumbria who have embraced Twitter but not so many of us have met in person so I felt the timing was right to organise a meeting of local twitter users – in twitter terms it is called a Tweet-up. Cumbria’s first Tweet-up happened in The Lounge Bar on Wednesday 7th October from 5pm – 8pm. It was lovely to meet everyone, there were no awkward silences, stilted conversations or hasty exits.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many spiral notepads in action during a social gathering but as a few members of our group (Ali, John and Nick) come from Journalistic backgrounds I guess that explains it! I’m sure there must have been a few interesting quotes towards the end of the evening.
I asked Caroline, manager of the Lounge Bar, if she could put on a few nibbles for the group. At 7pm our tables were full of a delicious selection of meze dishes from the Lounge Bar dinner menu, thank you very much Caroline for the very generous selection of food! It was appreciated by everyone.
I am hoping to organise another tweet-up before Christmas, it would be great to catch up with everyone again and hopefully see some new faces too. I wondered if everyone taking part in this next local tweet-up would like to help make a difference to our local Animal Rescue Charity – Wetheriggs. They are really struggling and have made an urgent plea this week on their website.
URGENT HELP NEEDED We are currently struggling to keep the Wetheriggs site going. Please contact us if you are able to volunteer to help with the animals, in the cafe or shop or if you would like to give a donation of money or items to sell on our charity table (no clothes or electrial items). You can donate online using PayPal® or a credit card. We also urgently need items to help the animals, for example timber for building, water bottles, feeding bowls, cages, hutches for all types of animals.
I visited Wetheriggs in August and spent a couple of hours with the animals, keeper Margaret and Terry the Director. They do so much to help animals in need, they have more than 500 animals at the Wetheriggs site who all need food, shelter and care. I thought it would be very positive to use our tweet-up to perhaps help Wetheriggs in some way. All charities need funds to survive and to continue doing their work but Terry told me they always need “donations of old garden sheds, blankets, food especially tinned dog and cat food.”
Now I’m not suggesting you donate your old garden shed but how does everyone feel about making smaller donations of blankets, tinned dog and cat food, water bottles?
Here are some photos from Wednesday evening, 11 people turned up and 2 of them did their best to avoid having their photos taken 
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- Paul, John, Marilyn, Ali and Nick
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- Kevin on the left with Lee
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- From the left, Zoe, Paul, Ali ( or is it Bruce?) and Nick
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- Nick wags finger at Zoe and Ali
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- Lee extols the virtues of his 25 pocket bag to Ali
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- Ali, stuck for words resorts to sign language but Lee isn’t looking
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- Lee presents the benefits of his 25 specialised pocket bag, Ali with head in hands
