[RECAP] New Year's Day Impromptu 2021 Guiding Stars Virtual Meetup

[KarenVChin]

Happy New Year Local Guides!!

Started 2022 with a bang!

The idea of this impromptu, or pop-up, 2021 Local Guides Guiding Stars meet-up took place on New Year’s Eve here in San Francisco with a text message to Italy about 8 hours before it happened.

With so many of the Guiding Stars of 2021 showing their custom, beautiful limited-edition Guiding Stars gifts on social media throughout last month, I thought, let’s get these Guiding Stars and celebrate the 1st day of 2022 together. We would have the chance to wear our Levis jackets (with Local Guides pins) and drink from our Guiding Stars water bottles in the same virtual space!

The start of my New Year’s (1 AM PDT) is late New Year’s Day (10 PM NZDT) in New Zealand. I figured by the time I reach 2022 in California, most of the Local Guides Community has already celebrated the start of the new year and starting to wake up in 2022.

New Year’s Day, Saturday, January 1st, 9 AM GMT

• 1 AM in California
• 10 AM in Italy
• 2:30 PM in New Delhi
• 10 PM in Auckland

With the help of Local Guides Connect Moderator and 2021 Guiding Star @ErmesT , I created an impromptu Guiding Stars meet-up post for the Guiding Stars’ private Connect board. And Ermes emailed this invite to all of the 2021 Guiding Stars’ email addresses that we had collected from our last hosted unofficial virtual meet-up about 7 hours before the 1 AM PDT New Year’s Day meet-up.

Great time staying up!

For the twelve of us who met for 2 ½ hours, it was a fantastic start to 2022:

• Oliver (New Zealand)
• Anshuk & Tejal (India)
• Pavel (Malaysia/Bangladesh)
• Kashif (Pakistan)
• Jane (Ukraine)
• Zino (Nigeria)
• Ermes (Italy)
• Kristin (England/USA)
• Imperio (Mexico)
• Kasun (Sri Lanka/Canada)
• and me, Karen (USA)

We shared our individual Guiding Stars application stories and our process with Google to become Guiding Stars for 2021.

Interesting Guiding Stars Fact: @kasunaaaand @AnshukMitra provided their 2020 Local Guides activities to Google but were not selected to be in that inaugural Guiding Stars group. They both explained how hard they worked last year to be included in the 2021 group.

We wore our Levi’s jackets with our Local Guides pins.

We showed off our customized, one-of-kind Local Guides water bottles.

Bonus gift from Google unboxing

We found out @Tejal , one of our 50 Guiding Stars of 2021, is also a volunteerGoogle Product Expert! Of course, we asked questions about her being a PE in Google Classroom, Google Meet, and Google Calendar and wanted to know what she received from Google. Tejal answered and happily showed us what she received from Google as a PE. It was the second gift she received from Google in 2021!

Thank you!

Thanks, @OliverKIWI , Anshruk, Tejal, @PavelSarwar , @KashifMisidia , @JaneBurunina , @Zino , @TheRealKristin , Imperio, and Kasun, for joining Ermes and me. You made the start of 2022 extra special!

2021 Guiding Stars– I know the Local Guides Community would love to see you post a photo (or social media link) of you wearing your 2021 Guiding Stars gear below.

Cheers,

Karen

[KarenVChin]

Muchas gracias @Imperiospice for staying up to 3 am CDMX to help me celebrate New Year’s Day and kick start this impromptu virtual meet-up!

I want to publicly point this out in the global Local Guides Community how much you are willing to sacrifice for another Local Guide! I really appreciate you staying up as long as you did with us. That is complete Local Guides Guiding Stars dedication! You are truly a Local Guides rock star !

Mucho hugs and kisses to you and your family!

Karen

[JaneBurunina]

What a wonderful way to spend the first day of the 2022! Amazing conversation with friends!

Thank you @KarenVChin and @ErmesT for hosting it! Brilliant idea!

Happy New Year!

[iorikun301]

It’s always nice could witness the warm friendship among the Guiding Stars champions like this, @KarenVChin .

If you don’t mind, could you please also share your story about how you guys could be selected as Guiding Stars champion this year? What’s the steps you’ve done? What kind of exclusive rewards and gifts you’ve get by became Guiding Stars champion? How Guiding Stars champion status change you? And what advice(s) that you could share to other aspiring Guiding Stars wanna be in this forum?

Thanks for sharing

[9omer5]

Awesome job guys

[Imperiospice]

Karen, You have always been a source of inspiration, I do not forget the hug that Megan and you gave me. Thank you for inviting me to this activity, it was great to see you reunited, nothing like a meet up to start the year!!!

[Sophia_Cambodia]

Well done all STARS, no wonder the sky is so bright recently because the stars met each other in one event , jkd @KarenVChin @JaneBurunina what a wonderful initiative for the meet-up!

[KarenVChin]

@JaneBurunina – it was wonderful to have you be a part of my first hours of 2022! You must let us know when you receive your Guiding Stars gift. @ErmesT and I will love to see what you look like in your Levi’s denim Guiding Stars jacket on.

Cheers,

Karen

[KarenVChin]

@iorikun301 – how did you know about @ErmesT and I virtual Local Guides 2022 meet-up topics?

Cheers,

Karen

[KarenVChin]

Thanks for your kind words @Sophia_Cambodia ! Hope you had a New Year’s!

Cheers,

Karen

[iorikun301]

@KarenVChin – I knew your virtual Local Guides 2022 meet-up topics from this link: https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/RECAP-New-Year-s-Day-Impromptu-2021-Guiding-Stars-Virtual-Meetup/td-p/3147122

It’s fine if you don’t want to anwer. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Cheers,

Iorikun

[KarenVChin]

@iorikun301 , I am sorry if you misunderstood me. @ErmesT and I plan to have what you are asking in terms of your questions as a virtual meet-up topic soon.

Hope you will be able to join us.

Cheers,

Karen

[iorikun301]

@KarenVChin – I’m sorry more that I’ve misunderstood your question.

So, about how do I know about you and Ermes’ virtual Meet Up topic, the answer is: I don’t know.

I just read your Guiding Stars Meet Up recap, this, and I’m interested in the topic because I didn’t attend it (of course). That’s why I’m asking those questions. I had no idea that that was, coincidentaly, actually you and Ermes’ next Meet Up topic. I’m really sorry.

Sorry for my Bad English. Thank you.

Cheers,

Iorikun

[ErmesT]

Thank you for joining this impromptu meet-up, organised in a very few minutes, while I was already celebrating the new year.

The usual call from @KarenVChin , and a message sent to the Guiding stars, to test the water.

It was amazing to have friends joining from five different continents.

Yeah, you are a mind reader, @iorikun301 , because the questions that you are asking here are exactly the ones we were planning to respond in a meet-up that will happen soon about “meet the guiding stars”, or maybe “touching the stars” (we still working on this)

Sorry for responding so late. In the new year I took a few days OFF, to relax and do what I love to do more: explore an take photos.

What about you? How did you spent the first week of the year?

This is, in short, what I did

Today I started to post about that: Aquileia, Roman Empire in the North East of Italy - Part 1