Finally!
After a long time, I finally manage to host and join Virtual Meet-Up again. Super happy and excited, especially as the meet-up was held in celebrating the 7th Anniversary of our dear CONNECT. Seven wonderful years filled with joy, new discoveries, learning process, exchange of knowledge and skills, and of course LOVE.
After moving to Aotearoa New Zealand, I have missed so many meet-ups, the virtual as well as in-person. Our time zone is a bit tricky, so either is in the middle of the night or at the wee hours. But this time, I tried to work it out with our resources person, Brian @br14n and Velvel @Velvel by using Indonesian time, which is 5 hours earlier then New Zealand.
So on Saturday, July 29th, we had Stay Connected, Up Close and Personal with Connect and Google Maps.
I would like to thank everyone who have joined this meet-up. My heart swells looking at so many familiar faces whom I miss dearly and those new ones who join the meet -up as well as the community. Special shout out to dearest Lalo @LaloPadilla from Mexico who joined in the wee hours (2 AM if I’m not mistaken) and Max @Maximilianozalazar from Argentina who got up so early to join us (5 AM it was!). For sure we thank @TravellerG @PaDeSSo Sagir, Devi, Tejal, Shruti, Doc_Dells and many more whom I can’t mention .
The meeting officially started at 4.15 PM Jakarta time with a short introduction video being played showing the birthday messages from me, Velvel, and Brian, as well as messages, photos, and art works from many LG around the world.
You can see the video here as well as in my YouTube channel.
Then the meeting was followed with introductory part from all the participants. In total, we have around 28 participants from Argentina, India, Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand and Nigeria.
The plan was to share our colorful journey as Local Guides and some tips and tricks to ensure our fun journeys in Connect and Google Maps continues. We were supposed to have Brian explaining his vast experience in working together with different communities in Indonesia, but then Brian had an emergency at home so he managed to join at the last minute briefly.
Then Velvel shared her journey from last year’s celebration of Local Guide Connect. They had the food LGCB Food Crawl Meet up with Nusantara Food at Sarinah, one of the famous landmarks in Jakarta. I joined the meet-up virtually from New Zealand at that time, but I was in the middle of watching All Black, New Zealand Rugby team so it was very noisy. Yet I remembered @Padesso was there as well Read the full story of that celebration HERE.
Together with Velvel, we went through Connect pages and discussed some of the features there, including our favorite segments like Food and Drinks, Travel, Local Story, Meet Ups, and Achievement. We also discussed about favorite cities that we can choose and Connect would curate and choose posts coming from those cities, which we can find at the bottom part of the page.
We further touched upon some initiatives that are going on in Connect recently, like TRAC or Thousand Roads Added Campaign by Shola @SholaIB , Podcast about Google Maps and Connect by @JanVanHaver , and Top 100 Local Guides Leaderboard run by Adam @AdamGT , besides all amazing initiatives and campaigns we have so far like accessibility, Local Guides Clean the World and more. Many participants shared the fun, joy and benefits they got from being Local Guides and got connected though Connect. Before we close, we had the quizzes, led by @Radjasitanggang , the King of Quizzes within Indonesian LG. Thanks for your help, as always!
More photos of the VMU can be found HERE.
In short, we celebrated how Connect has brought us together and what we can do make life and the world better through Connect, Google Maps and beyond. Happy, happy 7th birthday once again.
We hope we will have more and more LGs contribute better in Google Maps, while at the same time share and post their stories in Connect. Ow, and we certainly hope we can meet in – person somehow sometimes. Thank you again to Kashif @KashifMisidia for initiating the series of LGCB celebration.
See you on the next adventure 
, el recap quedó sensacional!
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I’d be pleased to taste them one by one hehehe…
