This is a continuation of my recap post for the #EuroMeetup2024 event! As a co-organiser and co-host, this recap post is written from my perspective so it’s filled with a lot of behind-the-scenes details which I hope that readers would enjoy! Please check out Part 1 here! 
You can also check out my co-organiser and co-host, @PeteMHW and his recap/thank-you post here. 
A couple of things that I forgot to mention in Part 1:
- We also prepared a custom Google My Map to help explain the Manchester areas, places of interests etc. We wanted attendees to have a sense of where the activities will take place so that they can figure out the best place to find accommodation.
- We use spreadsheets quite extensively for sharing information and signing up for activities etc but I found a really nifty way to publish a portion of the spreadsheet so I created a schedule that was mobile friendly and easily accessible by the attendees through any browser app. You can take a look at our mobile friendly schedule here (I have removed the links to the group album and exit survey). This was well received!
[ Activities ]
This was a section that was fairly new to me to organise and it was both challenging yet rewarding. I drew my inspiration from Local Guides Summit 2016 and Connect Live 2019 where attendees got the chance to visit local businesses for a personal tour or to take part in an activity.
For me, I felt that it was both interesting for attendees and impactful for local businesses to have these types of exchanges. Also, there are a lot of local businesses who are still unaware of the Local Guides program, so it was a great way to introduce them to this amazing community of reviewers and passionate contributors.
Pete and I had lots of discussions on things to do, what was possible etc and I am the type that would leverage whatever resources we could get so, in the end, we invited some of the attendees to assist in some of the activities and we also got friends to help out too!
Although it was a very packed schedule with little room for delays, on the whole, I think it went well. I’ll try to briefly cover the activities that we organised but each activity is basically like a meet-up so we could easily do individual posts for each activity!
In the order of the schedule:
Canal boat ride - Officially, the event would start properly with the Welcome Dinner but as we already had quite a number of attendees arriving early, we set up two extra activities to keep them busy. First, Pete had asked a favour from his friend who owns a canal boat to take some of the Local Guides on a ride along the waterways. However, due to safety limits, we could only take 9 people on the boat ride.
Castlefield- Photo walk #1 - Next, we decided on a nice ice breaker activity that gave attendees a chance to explore the area whilst getting to know each other. @PaulPavlinovich , who is famed for his 36 Walks, lent us a hand with this. We started out at the Gas Works brew bar and headed along the canal ways to the Castlefield area to explore the industrial railway arches/bridges and the Roman ruins.
The Wharf - Welcome Dinner - Finally, the official start of #EuroMeetup2024! The Wharf was chosen to showcase a British styled pub/restaurant in the beautiful setting of canalways, old railway tracks and red bricked warehouses. We booked a private dining area called The Office which gave us ample room and space to socialise and get to know each other.
Review by Justyna
Review by Kristof
Review by Maria
Review by Paul
Review by Emily
You can catch the highlights of Day 1 here:
Onto Day 2 which, for me, is the heart of #EuroMeetup2024 because it really leans in on the personalised experience of exploring Manchester and meeting locals who are excited to share with us their passions and local knowledge!
Chetham’s Public library - Tour - Based on the exit survey that we did after the event, this was the most favourite activity during the event. It comes as no surprise because we had an excellent guide in Sian from Chetham’s, who gave us an amazing historical run down of this place! Chetham’s is the oldest free public reference library in the English-speaking world and it was astounding how progressive Humphrey Chetham was when he set forth instructions in 1653 on how the library should be run after his death!
Review by Justyna
Review by Anthony
Review by Paul
Review by Kristin
Review by Torben
Manchester Cathedral - Tour - Pete volunteers at the Cathedral as a guide so he got two amazing volunteers, Joe and Jenny, to show our group around! The Manchester Cathedral is one of the smallest in the UK because it actually started out as a church with a plan to build a separate cathedral, but in the end, circumstances forced the powers that be to convert the existing church into a cathedral! This and many more interesting facts were shared by our lovely guides and soon, the hour long activity zipped by!
Review by Anthony
Review by Anton
Review by Kristof
Review by Sanya
Review by Paul
Review by Kristin
Review by Torben
Mackie Mayor - Lunch - After two amazing tours, it was time for some food and it was a no brainer for us to recommend Mackie Mayor. We chose this popular food hall for its proximity as well as character and plenty of tasty grubs to try out! We had an area upstairs reserved for us.
Review by Kristof
Review by Jay
Review by Deni
Review by Anthony
Review by Ludwig
Review by Justyna
Review by Emily
Review by Kristin
Review by Torben
Review by Paul
Manchester Craft & Design Centre - Activity - This is a fantastic venue and a true hidden gem! I am always astounded by how few people actually know of this venue which houses local artists (they call them makers) and their studio space where they work and promote their crafts!
We split into two groups to visit two sets of makers (3 makers per group, 15 minutes per maker). This was a great opportunity to learn more about the different crafts each maker specialised in, the history and passion that they bring to their craft and to also take photos/videos to add to Google Maps.
The 6 makers that the groups saw were:
Bhaggie of Imprints of Earth (ceramics)
Review by FazZ
Review by Jane
Review by Yuliia
Review by Luigi
Review by Jan
Nicky of Cragg Jones Clay (ceramics)
Review by Kristin
Review by Paul
Review by Emily
Andrea of &Made (textile)
Review by Paul
Review by Kristin
Review by Emily
Review by Kristof
Valery and Olive of Vale et Oli (textile)
Review by FazZ
Review by Jan
Review by Jane
Review by Ludwig
Review by Luigi
Review by Yuliia
Stacey of Stacey Hill (jewellery)
Review by FazZ
Review by Yuliia
Review by Jan
Review by Luigi
Review by Ludwig
Ella of Ella McIntosh (pewter)
Review by Deni
Review by Paul
Review by Kristin
Review by Kristof
Review by Emily
At the end of this activity, Pete presented a goodie bag to each maker as a token of appreciation because they took time out of their busy schedules to support our event. For transparency, the centre and makers did not charge us for their time so we are truly grateful for their time and efforts.
In return, we hope that they’ve enjoyed the plentiful reviews that we left on Google Maps for both the studio spaces as well as the centre itself.
Review by Deni
Review by Ivaylo
Review by Emily
Review by Paul
Review by Jan
Review by Luigi
Review by Jay
Review by Kristof
Review by Yuliia
Review by Irena
Review by Anton
Fred Aldous - Activity - Next on our list of local businesses to explore is this astounding art supply shop! Many, many years ago, Google actually organised an event here under the City Experts program (which I attended) so when I reached out to them, they were more than happy to do something with us for EuroMeetup.
After a brief discussion, we eventually settled on a screen printing activity where attendees got to pick a tote bag from various colour choices, and pair it with one of three designs. You can check out the designs in Part 1 of this recap.
Unfortunately, due to the short amount of time that we had, attendees would not do the screen printing themselves. Also, we arranged for each attendee to receive a £5 voucher to use on any item sold at Fred Aldous…and there were plenty of nice things to browse through and pick up!
Oh, and we also got a lovely introduction from one of the managing directors/owners telling us the history of the shop and how it’s been run by the same Aldous family since the beginning! 
Review by Kristin
Review by Emily
Review by Paul
Review by Jay
Review by Deni
Review by Kristof
And somehow, we manage to squeeze in one more activity for the day which is at…
Ginger’s Comfort Emporium- Activity - This is an ice cream 
parlour in the famousAfflecks building that houses plenty of independent shops. Ginger is known for their high quality home made ice cream plus having some unique flavours!
Claire, the owner, was unable to meet us but she sent her head ice cream maker, Tom, to make sure we were looked after! We got to learn about their procurement process (they try to source everything locally), why they prefer to make small batches of ice creams (less preservatives and quality control) and a bit about their history.
As a surprise, we had arranged for all attendees to get either two scoops of ice cream or a single scoop plus a soft drink (courtesy of Google’s funding). And usually, Local Guides are such a noisy bunch but once they had the ice creams in their hands, they were as quiet as a mouse.
Ginger was super awesome to us as well as they threw in two specially made mystery flavours for us to try and guess! The mystery flavours were revealed as: strawberry and elderflower, and marmite and toasted bread!! 
Review by Ivaylo
Review by Jay
Review by Irena
Review by Deni
Review by Kristof
Review by Paul
Review by Irina
Review by Anton
Purezza - Dinner - We have a few vegans, vegetarians, and pescatarians in our group so we wanted to provide a vegan dining venue to showcase that vegan meals can also be tasty and exciting! And I have to declare that the truffle pizza was absolutely divine!! What a great way to end Day 2!
Review by Kristof
Review by Jay
Review by Emily
You can catch the highlights of Day 2 here:
Just a mini side note, I got caught in the cold and rain at the end of Day 2 so when I woke up for Day 3, I was feeling really ill 
. I soldiered on as well as I could but spent the first two museum visits at their respective cafes to get as much rest as I could.
Imperial War Museum North (IWM) - Free to explore - Located in the Salford Quays area, this was a nice opportunity to bring the attendees to an area away from the city centre plus we were surrounded by water! The original plan was to take a water taxi to/from the city centre but unfortunately, that option was not workable so we managed to get Pete’s friend to step in with his canal boat again! So whilst some of the group took the tram over to the Quays, some got to experience a lovely ride along the canals.
At the museum, we were greeted by Jackie, a volunteer, and she gave us a really good introduction to the museum; for instance, the design of the museum was inspired by the pieces of a broken bowl and that the architect wanted the floors to not be 100% flat because he wanted to create a subtle feeling of an incline for the illusion of instability caused by wars.
For me, the highlight of the museum was the immersive video presentation but there was just sooo much to read and discover at the museum!
Review by Justyna
Review by Irena
Review by Kristof
Review by Jay
Review by Emily
Review by Deni
Review by Jan
Review by Paul
Kargo MKT- Lunch & Activity - From IWM, we proceeded to QuaySide shopping mall for lunch at Kargo MKT, a new food hall. Along the way, we stumbled across a dragon boat festival which was really cool but we couldn’t stay for long. 
At Kargo MKT, we had arranged with @jayasimha78 to do a mini food photography workshop before we settled in for lunch. Jay came prepared with a presentation (accessed via mobile) to help with his workshop and by chance, the lighting where we were was not that good so it made for a perfect real-world example of how to take photos of food under poor lighting conditions. 
Post workshop, some of us had to rush off to catch the canal boat ride back into the city centre whilst others had their lunch.
Science & Industry Museum - Free to explore - Another fantastic museum in Manchester is the Science & Industry Museum which really showcases Manchester’s role in the cotton industry. Plus, it is also the site of the world’s first steam powered, inter-urban (linking Liverpool and Manchester) railway designed to transport both passengers and goods.
One of the Manchester Local Guides, @Johnbhewitt , volunteers here so he gave us a lovely intro to the museum plus a quiz for all the attendees to do! Then we spent some time exploring the different exhibits in the museum that includes a demo of theworld’s first programmable computer!
Review by Kristof
Review by Paul
Review by Justyna
YOTEL Manchester - Open Day - In line with our drive to create an interactive and educational experience both for the public as well as the attendees, it felt like an Open Day session would be a great way to achieve that. We still encountered lots of people that were unaware of the Local Guides program so we structured the Open Day to talk about the EuroMeetup event, the Local Guides program and a chance to ‘interview’ four Local Guides as part of a Q&A session.
We rented out a really funky venue for the Open Day at YOTEL, laid out some light refreshments and put together a simple agenda; welcome and introduction to EuroMeetup, introduction to the Local Guides program (courtesy of @LuigiZ and @PaulPavlinovich), a Q&A session with 4 super panellists ( @RussKH , @TheRealKristin , @JaneBurunina and @SanyaOdare ) and a brief time to chat, mingle and rest.
We did have a few requests to set up an online stream so that the community can tune in, watch and interact but unfortunately, with such a packed schedule, we decided to just do a recording to make it easier on our workload! You can watch most of the Open Day here.
Review by Maria
City Centre - Photo walk #2 - This activity was meant to be tied with the Open Day session with the idea of taking people out to explore the nearby surrounding areas and show to them what Local Guides do and how they use Google Maps to share their experiences. However, we did overrun the Open Day segment by a bit and also, after walking around for a while, it just felt that everyone was really tired so, we concluded the photo walk earlier than planned.
Manchester Party Bike - Activity - This activity took part during the Free & Easy session (see below) and it had a limit of 13 people that could participate. It was something I discovered whilst searching for fun and different things to do in Manchester. As we had quite a number of people interested in this activity but only 13 spaces available, we randomly picked names and unfortunately neither Pete nor I were selected! I was also called away on another errand so I wasn’t present to see how the group survived the experience!
Review by Russ
Free & Easy sessions - Because we had such a busy schedule for Days 2 & 3, we also planned a considerable free & easy session to allow our attendees time to explore the city on their own (or to catch a breath and relax!!).
Firehouse- Dinner - This was a bit of a risky choice because we didn’t have time to survey the venue or try it out beforehand (we haven’t tried Purezza before the event too but I did pay it a visit and spoke to the manager about our event) but it turned out rather well (minus the group next to our that kept shrieking loudly!). The food was well received by all…huge love was going towards the truffle potatoes! 
This was essentially our final night together 
because quite a number of the attendees were on an early flight the next day and would miss out on the farewell brunch! Pete and I would have loved to stay on for the after dinner drinks but we decided to pull out as we were running on fumes at that point.
Review by Irena
Review by Justyna
Review by Anthony
Review by Paul
Review by Russ
You can catch the highlights of Day 3 here:
Ducie Street Warehouse - Farewell brunch - Oh, what a mixed bag of emotions with our last activity to mark the end of EuroMeetup2024! On one hand, it was at a lovely looking venue (big open spaces, accessible, bright and clean), staff were very friendly and helpful, and the food was nice but portions were massive so we had lots of leftovers.
On the other hand, it took about an hour plus, possibly an hour and a half, before our dishes started to arrive and some in our party had to leave at a set time so that didn’t help. But, because it looked like the kitchen only started meal prep when we arrived, it also meant that we could make quite a bit of changes to our pre-orders without causing any disruption. Those in our group with allergies could also re-confirm with the kitchen what they could safely consume.
Also, they were very kind and gave us all a glass of prosecco as they knew from my email correspondence that the meal was to mark the end of the event! With the meal downed, it was time to say cheerio to all!
Review by Maria
Review by Anthony
[ Challenges ]
In case the activities above weren’t enough, I had to “complicate” things by adding Challenges into the mix 
. For activities where we had tour guides/volunteers, I wanted the attendees to give them their fullest attention. But for activities where we had time to freely explore, I wanted to do some Local Guides centric challenges.
The challenges are team based so we split the group into two based on the colour of the lanyard they were wearing; blue lanyard = Team Blue, red lanyard = Team Red. However, the lanyards were not handed out randomly as the members in each team were already pre-decided based on the number of activities they had signed up for. This is to make sure that over the course of the event, the size of each team didn’t fluctuate too much since not all attendees were present for every activity.
Also, points were averaged out over the number of active participants in each team so bigger teams did not have an unfair advantage; so scoring points really depended on each team member fulfilling their tasks for each challenge.
Each team chose a new name for themselves and also appointed Team Captains and Team Vice Captains. These folks also got an extra pin badge to match their respective roles and they would be helping Pete and I in managing their own teams, making sure folks were moving along and keeping up with the various tasks.
So… we ended up with:
Team Blue = Skila Pirates. Skila is the name of Torben’s adorable dog that he brought with him. They were led by @LuigiZ (Captain) and @FazZ (Vice Captain). […I’ve now run out of tags!..]
Team Red = Mad Roses. They were led by @PaulPavlinovich (Captain) and @Maria68 (Vice Captain).
Winners of each challenge will get the gold version stickers and runner-ups will get the silver version stickers. See Part 1 to view the stickers designed for the challenges.
As for the challenges, we came up with four different challenges that served different purposes.
Community Challenge:
“Create a single 1 minute long video featuring your team members. 1-3 points will be awarded for each of these categories: creativity, humour and presentation.
To Win: Team with the highest points.”
This was announced at the Welcome Dinner after we surprised the group by dividing them into their teams! The purpose of this challenge was to get team members to get to know each other better. The deadline for the video was by dinner time on Day 3 so there was time for each team to record clips at different places etc.
Here are the results for this challenge! Enjoy!
Explorer Challenge:
“Write one or more detailed reviews of the Manchester Craft & Design Centre,
Fred Aldous, and/or
Ginger’s Comfort Emporium.
One review = 1pt.
Two reviews = 2pts.
Three reviews = 3pts.
To Win: Team with the highest average points.”
This challenge was revealed after lunch on Day 2 and the deadline was by dinner time on Day 2 and the focus was on writing reviews for the various local businesses that we explored.
Accessibility Challenge:
“Write a review of the Imperial War Museum focussed on Accessibility.
Review only = 1 pt.
Review + photo(s) = 2pts.
Review + photo(s) + video(s) = 3pts.
To Win: Team with the highest average number of points.“
This challenge was revealed at the start of exploring the Imperial War Museum and we also got our guide, Jackie, to share some pointers to what the museum was doing to make sure areas were accessible to all. Deadline for this challenge was before the Open Day activity on Day 3.
Photography Challenge:
“Everyone to submit their best photo taken since the start of EuroMeetup 2024 that matches one of these themes: Manchester cityscape, Local Guides. This photo will go into an anonymised pool for online voting.
To Win: Team with the highest average stars.”
This challenge was revealed before the start of the Photo Walk #2 (after the Open Day activity). Deadline was set for dinner time on Day 3.
This is the photo with the most votes; congrats to @FazZ of Team Blue/Skila Pirates.
And where do the stickers go? Well, they get put on the ID Card so they can proudly showcase their team’s effort! The stickers were designed to match and blend into the existing pattern in the ID Card.
[ Misc ]
Here are some miscellaneous points/topics:
-
Registration forms - this is a good way to get initial information from interested parties and to also filter out people that may be a bit too enthusiastic about your event and wanting to sign up but with no possibility of actually physically turning up.
-
Food - We’ve tried our best to make sure that all the venues that were chosen could cater to all the different allergies and dietary requirements. Some issues still cropped up unfortunately and those will just need to be handled as well as possibly can.
-
Mobility - It’s also good to check if anybody has any mobility difficulties
-
Marketing - We used the usual social media outlets to try and advertise the event. Unfortunately, it can still be very challenging to convince the public to join in. The one avenue that we didn’t explore properly was to approach local online news sites to see if any one of them would be willing to publish an article promoting the event.
-
Costs - As great as being a host for the event, one of the hardest challenges to manage is the cost of holding an event in the UK. Some of the feedback that we got from the exit survey mentioned that the cost of transportation (flights/trains), accommodation and food is quite expensive compared to our European counterparts and I do have to agree on this. It can be quite hard to balance cost and quality and sometimes even near impossible!
-
Exit survey - Entirely optional but it’s a good way to understand what went well and what could be improved.
-
Pace - Another concern that we had was that I was trying to pack in too many activities and that everything would feel like a rush. It’s quite an unfortunate byproduct of being too eager to show our guests as much of Manchester as possible! It’s quite hard to get the balance right since everybody has different interests so some activities may be exciting to some, but boring to others and trying to figure out how much time to allocate for that activity is really tough. But I do have to hold my hand up and say that we did do too much and we could have slowed things down a bit.
A related point that was mentioned in the exit survey was that we could have set up the museum visits on separate days. I would agree on this as well but the reason we did what we did was because we grouped activities based on their location so Day 2 happened to focus on local businesses more whilst Day 3 was on museums.
And that folks is, finally, the end of this recap post! I think I’ve covered everything that is swirling inside my head. Again, apologies for the delayed recap post but I hope that it’s worth the wait! It’s taken a while to collect all the info and having to edit my videos first before I can reference them in my post. I still have a few bits to add but I’ll do so in the comments section because I’m just worried that this post won’t publish!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them below and I’ll try my best to answer them all! It’s been a tremendous pleasure organising and hosting this event with @PeteMHW and I’m so fortunate to be able to showcase Manchester (my home away from home) to all my Local Guides friends!
I’m joking!!).