#LincsBlogMeet - The Event

This Saturday just gone, was the first ever #LincsBlogMeet. It was organised by myself and Amy - a little idea we had at the beginning of the year, which grew into something much bigger and better than either of us had thought!

As I'm sure you know, if you read my blog regularly, I like to organise. For the most part that's just dinner parties or murder mysteries, but it has always stretched to events like our Muggle Meet weekends, days at a theme park, birthday surprises etc. When I attended my first ever blog meet, MidsBlogmeet, I was immediately bitten by the bug and thought how much I'd love to organise my own. I suggested to Amy that perhaps it was something we could organise together and while things were slow to get started, we soon got stuck in there with our planning and sorting.

Saturday showed the results of all our organising and I'm pleased to say, I think we did a pretty good job! There were about 25 attendees in total on the day, which was far more than we had originally anticipated.

All the lovely people who attended our blog meet

For Amy and I, the blog meet felt like it really started on the Friday night. While majority of the goody bags stuff was sorted from the last time Amy visited, we had 4 more huge boxes to sort through, as well as Press Packs to put together. We were a little slow to get started, delaying somewhat as we waited for takeaway to be delivered, but eventually we cracked on. Sadly it was still 2.30am before we got finished and it was actually 3am before I went to bed. Not only that but we were both up at 7am, ready to get cracking with the day ahead!

Friday night, getting the final bits organised

Amy and I were parked and in town for about 9am the next morning. The first placed we headed was ASK Italian, the main location for our blog meet. We were delighted to find that they were all set up and ready for us, not only that but each and every person was gifted their very own ASK Italian Cookbook. The manager Anna, who I had dealt with while booking wasn't in, but the Deputy Manager Stuart looked after us brilliantly. after dumping a few boxes in the upstairs room, Amy and I headed off to grab coffee.

The ASK Italian Cookbook

We grabbed a quick Starbucks and headed to the station. We were a little early but to be honest we were starting to feel a little nervous. As we stood outside the station, we tried to guess who might be there waiting for us - not sure if they should come over or not. In the end we took a Selfie and uploaded it to Twitter, so everyone who was coming would know we were there!

People started to arrive in dribs and drabs. For the majority of the half an hour, I managed to remember everyone's names - if only to recall them all as each new person joined the group. By 10.30am we were still a few people missing but it was time to crack on with the Photo Trail. We re-arranged the four groups a little and then sent everyone off on their task to take 10 group pictures each. We made sure we covered the main Lincoln landmarks - such as; the Castle, the Cathedral, the Stonebow etc - but also companies who had supported the blog meet, such as; The Fragrance Shop, Lush and ASK Italian. While everyone was off on their trails, Amy and I headed back to ASK to get ready.

The Blue team was the winners of the photo trail and they were faster than we would have even guessed. Next came red, followed by orange and finally green. We had laid out name badges on the table, so everyone found their seat, looked through the menu and got comfortable. While everyone was settling in, Una from Weleda arrived - so she too set up all her bits and pieces, ready to give us all a talk.

Una's talk was fantastic and I'm sure everyone enjoyed it. She talked about the Weleda range, the way its made, the products you can buy and even a little name dropping of everyone's favourite - Simon Cowell. We passed around products to sniff and smell, some people even tested the odd thing here and there. Una answered everyone's questions and it all flowed brilliantly. By the time Una was finished, everyone's lunch was ready so they all settled in to eat their food.

Amy and I ended up eating standing. As we've both been waitresses in the past, this isn't really that unusual. However it felt like there was just too much to do and too much to organise, to be able to sit down. That said, I still thoroughly enjoyed my Portobello al Funghi, as it was delicious!

Just as everyone was finishing their lunch, Julie from Boots arrived. Julie really saved us at the last minute, as unfortunately Lush were unable to come and give a talk. On Thursday night after work I had popped into Boots on the odd chance that someone could help us out. Julie had rung me on Friday morning and in less than 24 hours she threw together goody bags for everyone, plus did a brief but great chat all about skincare. In fact, I hadn't even realised that medium to large Boots stores employed an independent Skin Care advisor, so that people can go in and get impartial advice, without a brand having a vested interest. Julie was very keen to come back and do another talk in the future for us - though this time with a bit more advanced warning!

After Julie's talk was done, we moved on to the Beauty Swap. This was an idea that I'd had, which Amy thought was great. Basically the concept was to bring your full size or sample size beauty products with you - just the ones you didn't want - and swap them for something you did want. Amy and I had rooted out a whole load of beauty products we were happy to part with and as everyone brought loads of stuff, it meant people had a really good choice of products to swap with.

The swap took quite some time, but when it was finished, that was also the end of the Blog Meet. During the meet as a whole, we'd done raffle giveaways but that's something I'll touch on in another post. As everyone left, we handed out the goodies and made everyone pose for group photographs. Everyone paid their bills, said their thanks and then left!

Team Green

Team Red

Team Orange

Team Blue

Amy and I cleared up, with the help of some of our close friends and then headed back to the car with the leftovers! We headed for more coffee, just to make it through the rest of the day, picking up the kids and heading home.

It was a fantastic day for us and I'm pretty sure everyone else enjoyed themselves too. While it was incredibly exhausting and so much work, I'm sure its something we'd both like to do again in the future. So watch this space... there may well be a #LincsBlogMeet2 coming before December!

We would love if everyone who attended the LincsBlogMeet, linked up their posts! Doesn't matter if its a general post about the day, or a specific review of a company or product - please add your link!