2022
Bringing local guides together for a Meetup is always challenging, as agenda slots need to get coordinated, travels need to be made, etc. That's why I decided to try and set up a Virtual Meetup, where local guides from all around the globe could participate by logging in to an online session from a computer or mobile device. As a topic I picked 'Lists' (and added the attribute 'Lovely' to get a nice alliteration 🙂).
The response was overwhelming... 76 local guides signed up, from a wide range of counties and LG levels. At that point I was getting a bit nervous, as I feared it would get impossible to manage such a big number of participants. But in the end only about 20 or so showed up, and it turned out to be perfectly manageable. Correction: manageable, not perfectly manageable, as the struggle with different windows and screens (the video chat itself, the text chat that went along with it, my shared desktop, my shared phone screen, the notes I had made in preparation) was quite challenging, but at the same time a good learning opportunity.
We had a nice talk about Lists on Google Maps and in between some other local guide related topics came up, which was fine of course. You can check the recording of the entire session here: https://youtu.be/zrFgfV-e47M.
As it was fun for all participants, I'm quite sure there will be more of these - at least I will host some more in the future (although no specific dates have been fixed as I have a super busy period coming up), and all other local guides should consider doing the same. Don't hesitate to reach out to me if you consider hosting a Virtual Meetup yourself but still have some questions.
