Hello, my friends!
It took me several days to post this recap, sorry for the delay but here I go!
Last Sunday, I managed to host a virtual meetup with participants from all over the world. I was thinking throughout the week what to do and how to catch the attention of everybody and have a good time together… I even asked @Jesi a few times about some ideas I had and of course I got great tips and feedback from her… days passed by quite fast because I was also kinda busy with work-related duties. In the end, I just decided to improvise a little bit and try to manage the meetup by hunch. Of course, I had a structure of the event in my mind but then I remembered something I read from Peter Drucker “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” What this means? Well, that people, as a team accomplishes pretty much everything if motivated, and that the culture of a company is stronger than anything. We, as Local Guides, are the center of this community named Connect, and our values, habits, and proactiveness create this bridge oflearning & growth 
. It was easy to get along with everybody, to fabricate this emotional connection, and for 90 minutes or so we had a great time together, and laughs were the main ingredient of the afternoon.
Photo Album: Global Virtual Meetup LGs April 26th, 2020
First of all, I have to thank @Jesi because she represents every single word I mentioned, and embodies what I mean by culture. She helped me out to organize, and co-host the event. The meet was as smooth as a brand new car. Thanks Jess… 
24 attendees, 11 countries! I was amazed to meet wonderful local guides from:
Bangladesh 
India 
Pakistan 
Nigeria 
Nepal 
Belgium 
Mexico 
Cánada 
Argentina 
Brasil
Being part of Connect is truly a blessing as well as a great opportunity to be part of a Global Community
We kicked off the meetup at 12 pm sharp (Peru time). In the beginning, we started introducing ourselves and describing our involvement in Connect, Google Maps, and some other Google products such as Crowdsource, among others. It was nice to know that there are several teachers in Connect as I am, very touching moment since we have reinvented ourselves to continue our duties from the distance.
There was also the chance to share hobbies and several activities that we have added to our repertoire while in quarantine. In my case, I have been doing puzzles, reading a lot, mostly ebooks, and enhancing digital skills. It was so much fun to learn from others, from gardening tips, cooking (Valeria, those cookies you made looked spectacular and super tasty, and healthy by the way because I remember it had no sugar added), drinks such as the limoncello that Ricardo prepared and showed to us… I was dizzy just by looking at it. LOL cheers my friend! Viva Mexico!!! 
This meetup was also special because we had the opportunity to celebrate the birthday of our friend**Oscar @Oscar_Kwok **from Canada so we played a popular Latin American song “ranchera style”. I truly hoped you enjoyed Oscar, and thank you for being there… that was the whole point of this virtual meetup, to hang out, laugh, and learn… these days are so much better this way.
Well, this is it I guess. It´s been a pleasure to meet you all guys! Thanks, Ceci, Silvi, Vale, Jesi, Alexandre, Ricardo, Lalo, Sumeet, Vineet, Yago, Renuka, Oscar, Aditya, Jan, Muhammad, Nura, Sandeep, Aksshay, Madan, Zino, Solaiman!!! you guys ROCK! What a community we have here, haven´t we? @AlexandreCampbell @Cecilita @SilvyC @ValeriaA @LightRich @MSulaiman @Zino @SolaimanHossain @Shreeya_99
See you soon
Your friend,
Marco … from Peru!
