MG meetup in the UK

Just testing the water a bit here.

I wanted to know if there was a sufficient number of MG users here in the UK to have a meetup sometime in the summer. I thought it might be a nice idea for all the regulars and maybe even some irregulars to meet up on an evening in the summer. I've never met anyone on MG IRL, and I expect that's the case for a number of people.

Thinking about it, it'd probably be easiest to host it in London if it were to happen, since Travel is reasonably convinient and places to go are never far away.

I just thought I'd throw the idea out there, see if there are any takers!

 

**** Yeh!!!!

Get the US guys to come over and we can have a mass party pissup at my place!!!

I'm 20 miles from Central London, 20 minute train ride from Euston!

 

Ah ha...serving Boone's Farm I see

Goldy, we'll appear by phone or I can fake some requistion papers and grab a T-38 and a pilot

 

If that ever was to happen - I would be up for it. Be interesting to see what the people on here are like in real life.

 

Cool, got a couple of followers!

Just gotta keep this bumped to see if we get some more interest. We could possibly do a weekend or something, perhaps, hit the streets and show the world who's the geekest And naturally take plenty of video so everyone can enjoy the fun!

I think if we get 5 or more people interested it'd be worth organising something. Seem like a reasonable kinda number?

 

How about go ultra geek and have a lan

 

One of my friends is trying to organise a LAN party in the tate modern. Heheee.

We could have a lan party, but not all members here are gamers. We'd need to have some other geeky kinds of activities if we were to go down that route. We could try and make a huge ad-hoc wireless network in Leicester Square or something like that

mcadam - what are you doing out of school? Lunchtime is is? I'm about to go back again for a Physics tutorial. W00 h00. Unfortunately it's with our teacher that doesn't really teach us anything. Then I've got a meeting with a client who's a residual aftereffect of my former colleague - i.e. he's pissed off. Oh joy.

 

Meh, I came home cos I had no lessons today. Teacher wasn't here so I thought why bother staying in!

I should be working but.....no

 

Woo, that sounds pretty fun! However, would all participants need to be over 18? At the moment im 15 (and a half ) a trip down to london is no problem for me as I don't live that far away (Northamptonshire)

 

It depends what we do. Providing your parent/guardians don't mind, I don't see why not.

There are some restrictions later on the evening (under 16's often have problems with dispersal zones, as I find with other meetings - for some reason the poliece think they're a threat to security ) and obviously for bars/pubs/clubs - but I think the bulk of the meetup would be during the day (get some of that sunshine that us geeks don't see enough of ). It really depends what we end up doing.

I think a good meetup would include some parks, Tottenem Court road for some geek-ing out, perhaps decend on a "Computer Fair" and show them who's boss. And we definitely need to go to one of the many coffee vendors - I know of many good ones, and not one of them are Starbucks, Costa Coffee or Coffee Republic. Indie coffee shops! A visit to Cybercandy might be fun, too.

But, they're just my ideas - we really could do anything!

Oh at some point we need to go somewhere were we can phone people in the USA I'm thinking somewhere with an internet connection so I can dial out with VoIP

If we go ahead with this, we'll need to get photos off people so we know who's who before we meet up.

But - before we do any of this we need some more interest!

 

Yeh, Great idea lets just hope we get lots more interest! Although I'm 15 and half I could probably pass over as 16 anyway I also like the sound of that VoIP and deffinately the computer fair

 

I'm 18 in September, so can pass

Yeh should be a great idea, where are there comp. fairs though?

 

Well I'll be 16 in october so that should help a bit

As for the computer fairs, I'm not sure where we could find one. However, the chances are that we will find one somewhere If this was a weekend meetup, what are we going to do about a place to stay? Also what sort of cash will we all need?

 

Meh, we'll stay at mine

I'm 20 miles from Central London, can't be that hard!!!

Money for transport and any touristy crap that you wanna buy...

 

Wow, sounds like fine.. You sure about that mcadam, that's very generous of you

 

I thought the sun didn't shine over there across the pond?

 

It doesn't... we just like to pretend we know all about that mythical ball of fire in the sky (yea right, ball of fire in the sky, that'll be the day, drab grey skies is all there is)...

I know I lurk more than participate and would be up for a meet up, but I'm looking to relocate to the US before summer gets under way so will probably miss out.

 

I don't know HOW far away from London I am, I can only hope and presume mr fish over there or sizjam knows. If i'm free. I'm up for it...

 

I'm still hoping to get back to Sierra Leone (land of the missing athletes--Commonwealth Games), via the UK probably. Keep us informed on developments. Bazza

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YAY

You're about 40 miles from London, Hugga.

It really depends how rich everyone is feeling. We could make it a geek-weekend if you wanted to, and we (someone) could organise a hotel to stay at with a group discount.

Computer Fairs - can be found at various places, usually in the vicinity of TCR (Tottenem Court Road). There are a couple of semi-back-alleys where they tend to appear - some are more, shall we say legitimate than others.

As for dates - I'm thinking August sometime. Sound alright? I might build that into a little web page so we can work out when the maximum number of people are free and soforth.

Another couple of "count me in's" and I'll make a registration page of some kind so we can track who's turning up. We shall inform the authorities beforehand

 

I live a loooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng way away from london.

 

Not as far as I dooooooooooooooo. Please contribute to the thread, not just geography. Bazza

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Please post once this page is done I'm hookedto the idea already

 

Goldy,

Please spell Tottenham Court Road correctly otherwise people might not find it in their A-Z's.

 

This isn't geeky, but a fun thing to do is paintball skirmish.

What a great way to get to know someone, blasting them with paintballs.

 

I always add extra n's where there shouldn't be. Like Bannannana.

If they can miss TCR on a tube map, they might need to learn how to read! It's in the exact center!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/travel/downloads/tube_map.html

 

This sounds like a lot of fun. Be a good chance for us to put faces to usernames. I live in Camberwell, in south london, so I might be able to help with organisation.. I will try to think of some sort of 'thing' to do, definately up for the coffee tho . Maybe trip up to Camden market, or some sort or tech museum of something?

As for money, trains into can be really expensive, but there isn't much alternative, parking in (central) london is almost always not worth it.

A day travelcard (unlimited tube and busses) costs £4.90 a day (off-peak), a day bus pass is £3.

For info getting to london via train, try http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

Any other questions, drop me a line.


Matt

 

Goldy, if this grows into a full weekend thing (and sounds like fun!) try to structure it where those that can only make it a day trip can at least do Saturday and get as much out of it as they can. Not everybody may be able to swing a full weekend.

 

Do we still have the video from Kodo's potato cannon fund raiser?

 

Oh man, I think that's still on my FTP account
http://www.nicholaslidster.plus.com/BashKodoWeb.wmv


Yes. Well, I think that's enough to warrant a signup list

RF: fantastic, we'll need help organising things. Totally agree with transport - the only alternative is to a train is to drive somewhere on the outskirts (like Acton) to park then get the tube in from there. But that means you need to get an all zones travelcard, which is crazy expensive. Be much easier just to get a train in - and meet at strategic places. It might be an idea to have gathering parties at various mainline stations then to all go to one place - if people are going to be coming from various different stations.

If we get an idea of when people are best free, we can work out when and how people are going to come by. I'll knock up the reg page in a minute.

For the meantime, have some handy links:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tube/arts/going-out/tubeguru.asp
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2006/oyster/general.asp - you can buy a pre-pay oyster card, which might be less expensive than a 3 day travelcard.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/london_guide <-- a geek guide to London
http://www.cex.co.uk/ <-- big store on TCR
http://www.shasonic.co.uk/ <-- another big store on TCR, a bit more consumery

 

OK try this uber simple signup thing
http://nicholaslidster.plus.com/mgmeet/index.php

Add yourself so we can make a mailing list of sorts to start with. Cheers

 

Link is dead for me

 

Same here, Just get a blank page which is constantly loading

 

Ah, bugger. That's cause my home server isn't online. Gimme a few seconds and I'll be online.

 

Right should be working now Go for it!

 

Woo! I'm All Done

 

Brill

I know it's a little simplistic, but it'll let us get a list of emails so we can keep y'all updated about plans 'n stuff. I'll make something a little more elegant if it's required. Don't worry, I'm the last person who'd sign anyone up to spam, your emails are safe with me. They won't get echoed out in plaintext, only the name and comment does that so far.

 

Sound great, Please let me know if there's anything I may be able to help with

 

Incredible!

Bobomoomin, I added you on MSN a while ago....

 

Really? Whats your email?

 

Ok you peoples. I've made the signup list look a little more attractive. It now has similar colours to MG Cunning eh? It still looks a bit naff but it'll do.

Now, I've got to ask officially whether we're allowed to use the name Major Geeks as a name to meet under And whether we can stick the logo onto the signup page. And whether I can make some slight modifications to the logo - you know, give it a bit of a british theme

Radiofool and I have exchanged numbers now - so we can do some organising

It might be worth thinking about dates. Personally, I'd say a weekend in June would be good - since those of us with exams would have finished them (mostly) and it should be fairly nice out by then.

Your thoughts?

 

While I've got the attention of some UK geeks, since shipping from the US is somewhat expensive, does anyone want to put some money together and get a bunch or T-shirts/hoodies/caps from J!NX to save on shipping a bit?

Thought I'd throw that out there..

 

That sounds like a great idea. However, I am completely broke at the moment.. If you mean to all put the money together at this meeting then thats fine, but right now I can't

Also, the signup page looks a lot better sinse its Geekifacation. Good job Goldy

 

WAH. I let this fall to the second page!

Now, a question for you. Is anyone up for a little urban warfare?

Basically, I have a whole bunch (16 to be precise) tickets for Ministry of Paintballing tickets for cheap. For a day's game and 100 paintballs it's £15. (which is £10 less than it would be normally, and without the £200 booking fee. Not bad eh?).

There is an indoor arena at Canary Wharf.
http://www.ministryofpaintball.com/?tpage=site&spage=dets&id=can2

Would anyone be up for that? I'd just ask that you paypal me £4 for the ticket, then I'll post the voucher out to you so you can book at 100 balls yourself.

Depending on how much interest I get here I might invite some of my other geeky friends in the area. It could be an epic battle - but for the moment I shall refrain from saying who the other side would be Needless to say, I expect that the geeks will have sufficient motivation to blast the living daylights out of the opposition

So, what do you think?

 

Yeh paintballing is awesome!I've not played in ages, last time I played I got pretty bashed up (We played rugby style) Love to give it anoher shot though

 

Ok well if anyone wants to buy a ticket or two (feel free to buy as many as you like!) then just PM me with your address and I'll tell you where to Paypal the money to. You don't even need to meet up with the geeks, if you feel like playing with a few friends you can buy a few off me. I've got 16 of them so not like I'm short of them.

I'm gunna say they're £4.50 each. You'd be saving at least £10 per head. You get a free lunch, too. Handy, eh?

 

Hey folks, what about Manchester as a meeting place.

We've actually got a pretty happening City going on here, it has the added benefit of being reasonably central geographically etc and we are not short of Geek.

Everything in the City is easy to get to and we have the largest student population in Europe.

Need I point out the further advantage that almost everything is considerably cheaper than in the 'Smoke', a bonus I have always sought out and have always regarded as an exemplar of Geek.

Oh and we have two of best, (cheapest), component suppliers in the UK, now that's Geek.

 

Hmm Manchester does sound good, however london is a lot easyer to get too for most of us, well it is in my case and I'm pretty sure others would say the same

 

I'd be up for a meet but would suggest somewhere near the centre of the country, like Birmingham or Sheffield.
I mean, I live in Licolnshire, which is hardly the North, central London is over 3 hours away!!