Edinburgh Blogger Conference

One Saturday last month I headed off to Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Blogger Conference, and had a great time there meeting other bloggers and picking up lots of tips!

I'm not usually much of a people person, and the word "networking" strikes fear into my heart, but I actually found that meeting and chatting to like-minded people was one of the best things about the conference. I was really delighted when I found out that Chrissie of The Dunfermline Tea Party Society was going to be there - we have become friends over the past few months on Instagram, and share a love of the shop Flying Tiger, and of tea. And she lives right next door to my Gran and Grandad's old house! It was great to meet her at last, and it felt like we had known each other for years! And I also met Hollie of Hello It's Hollie, and many others.

The conference was held in Whitespace (Norloch House) which is just behind St Cuthbert's Church. Since I got there early and it was a lovely day, I had a little wander around the lovely churchyard there first. Although Norloch House is Victorian, the inside is ultra modern. On arrival, we were all given goodie bags and directed to an area with tea and coffee making facilities - and all through the day we were able to help ourselves to coffee, various flavours of tea, Tunnock's Tea Cakes and Caramel Wafers, croissants, fruit, popcorn, and candy floss! Lunch was catered for by Nandos, and there were some lovely nibbles at the end of the day too.

The day consisted of various talks, panels and workshops. I was a little unsure when I heard the first was to be a motivational speaker who works in schools, Gavin Oattes, but it turned out that he was really fun and interesting, more like a stand-up comedian, and I actually picked up some tips (on being enthusiastic and enjoying what you do, and how that can affect those around you) that will come in handy in my day job (in a school), as well as when I'm blogging!

The workshop on vlogging was quite a practical one, with a worksheet to fill in. We were able to think about the reasons we might have against doing it, and mine was that I don't like speaking on camera. But the solution to that was that I could do craft tutorials that are purely visual with background music!

I found the panels really interesting. In the morning there was one with Andrew Girdwood, Ruth MacGilp, Stuart Fenwick, Hannah Taylor, and Gordon J Millar, and the afternoon was one with Simon Burrell, Shaun Alexander, Erin Doogan, Sarah Stenhouse, and Scott Dalgleish. Each speaker spoke for a short while about what they do, and there was a chance to ask questions.

Afterwards I headed out in the sunshine along Princes Street with Chrissie and Hollie, and did a little shopping with Chrissie. And then it was the train home (which was unfortunately unbearably hot and full of very loud people!).

I really enjoyed the day, and it's actually made me think of maybe taking a trip down to Blogtacular sometime in the future - I used to think that there would be no point in going to things like that unless I was a full-time blogger!