Mummascribbles – My first BritMums Live – Mummascribbles
Last weekend I went to BritMums Live, my first ever blogging conference. The lovely lovely ladies at Kidster sponsored me and I am so thankful to them for giving me the experience that I just had.
I was so excited during the morning, that the whole way there I felt fine and had no nerves. I got off the tube, walked the short distance to the venue, turned the corner and saw this.
Then it happened! The nerves kicked in, I went all shy and hovered like a little mouse, desperately seeking the familiar faces of those I talk to on a regular basis.
It didn’t happen.
Not until I was at the registration desk inside collecting my badge. It was then that I spotted Louise from Little Hearts Big Love. Phew! We recognised each other and that was that. I had a friend…yay! It was lovely meeting her in person (she really is as sweet as you imagine her to be), and we spent a while in the exhibition area where along came a lady who had her babies delivered by Louise back when she had been a midwife! Amazeballs.
Wandering around and the next person I bumped into and very excitedly squealed at was the very beautiful Sarah from Run Jump Scrap! We hugged, we selfied, we chatted
Suddenly I was feeling far more confident and happy in my new surroundings and I took to wandering around the exhibition, chatting to brands, grabbing freebies and eating cake!
Then it was time for the sessions to begin.
The keynotes
Each and every keynote speaker was fantastic. There was Ella from Deliciously Ella talking about her journey from being seriously ill in hospital to becoming a successful blogger and author.
There was Victoria Wright from Not Just a Funny Face who discussed the trials and tribulations of not looking the way people think we should look.
Then we had the lovely Carol Smilie who was talking about her journey from TV presenter to entrepreneur (I feel a whole blog post coming on about her product) and finally, Caprice. Now, I wasn’t sure what to make of Caprice being on the agenda and I feel bad for being so judgmental – she was fabulous and her journey to motherhood and entrepreneurship is incredible. Then when she said the words “because we need two incomes to survive”, I nodded along and felt a little better about my situation of having to work for financial reasons.
The sessions
All other sessions were parallel ones and in some parts I found it so hard to choose what ones to go to. The ones I chose were:
How successful bloggers do it
This was fab. I’ve worked with quite a few brands over the last twelve months and it was really fab to have a PR specialist up on stage telling us the best and worst ways of working with brands. Also up on stage were three wonderfully successful bloggers telling us all about their experiences with brands. I came away with a lot to think about.
Social media optimisation
I have to say, this wasn’t quite as inspiring as I hoped it would be. There was some good information there but there were too many questions throughout by delegates that meant there wasn’t much of a presentation from the panel. Because it was all focused around the answers to questions rather than they’re complete insight, it wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for.
Creating great graphics for your blog
I definitely needed to go to a design session. If there’s one thing I think I need to work on, on my blog, it’s the design, photos and graphics. I’m a bit rubbish at it, mainly because I just about have time to write, I definitely don’t have time to spend hours editing photos! But, I need to do more and in this session she gave away some brilliant tips on making everything a little bit prettier.
Marketing your writing
Possibly one of my favourites, the lovely Joanna from The Creative Penn gave so many tips on marketing ourselves, on writing, and talked of her experiences of not only successful blogging but of becoming a bestselling author! I came away truly inspired by that session.
How to be a social media manager
Ok so I was torn between this and the Pinterest session! Social media won because I already use it so much, I was looking for tips, advice and a potential new career 😁 there was a fab panel of ladies up on stage telling us all about their journeys to becoming social media gurus!
The bloggers keynote session
This session ended the conference. It was roughly an hour and a half with thirteen of the most amazing bloggers reading their wonderful posts. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house throughout some of the heart wrenching ones but the sorrow was mixed up with a fab working mum story, a brilliant poem and a hilarious letter from one of the dad bloggers to his 8 month old baby. It was such a brilliant end to the sessions.
Being a social butterfly
Of course it wasn’t all about the sessions. Oh no, there was plenty of wine drinking, plenty of nattering and also the Brilliance in Blogging awards on Friday night hosted by Carol Smilie. I’ve never been to an awards ceremony and I loved it. Clapping ruddy great claps for the brilliant winners and whooping in joy for all of my nominated friends. With shocked winners and tearful speeches, I reckon it was better than the Oscars!
World record attempt?
And then of course, there was the highlight of the weekend. The challenge of beating the world record in the number of mummies dressed as mummies. We were presented with a whole load of toilet rolls (all recyclable) and a demonstration of the best way of wrapping our fellow bloggers up! The smallest among us seemed to nominate themselves and I helped to wrap up the lovely Louise! Talk about getting up close and personal to break the ice!
The results came back a little later on and the question was, had we done it? It was close, it was tight. We were told the precious record was 50 mummies.
We wrapped 51!!!
Yessss – we are world record holders!
Of course, nothing could quite beat the biggest highlight for me, of meeting many of the blogging buddies I’ve been conversing with over the past year. There were so many I wanted to meet. There were so many I did meet and there are a pile that I failed to bump into!
It is impossible to name all of the amazing people I did meet and I would like those people that have not been mentioned to not be offended! This post would be a novel if I named you all.
But there were some that I needed to tick off and it was so amazing to meet:
My absolutely gorgeous co-host of Twinkly Tuesday, Caro from The Twinkle Diaries. Having shared hundreds of emails over the past few months, meeting her was a dream
Then there was Jess from Mummy of Boy Girl Twins. She’s gorgeous and lovely and everything I imagined her to be. Our first actual meeting was queuing for the loo. Yep, we hugged in the toilets!
The lovely Lucy from Mrs H’s Favourite Things sprung up behind me and it was one of those squealy moments! She is such a wonderful person inside and out, I just adore her.
And then there’s Aby from You Baby Me Mummy who is like my blog goddess! She’s a bit of a blog celeb in my eyes and she’s blimmin lovely!
Along with those, I spent my time hanging around with Amy from Everything Mummy, Heledd from Running in Lavender, Kat from Beau Twins, Steph from Diary of a Midlife Mummy and Sarah from Extraordinary Chaos. They are all simply fab
We even all went to a restaurant for dinner! All 14 of us 😁
I was sad that I didn’t really mingle with any of the dad bloggers that were there! I spotted Tim from Slouching towards Thatcham a few times, but sadly never quite got beyond hello!
To say I had the most wonderful time at BritMums would be an understatement. I had the best time ever and have been on a bit of a come down ever since! I’ve definitely come back with more ambition, armed with ideas and inspiration and with some truly wonderful blogging friends.
See you next year everyone 😁
P.S. If you saw a sneak preview of this post when it was half written and unedited that’s because I stupidly clicked publish instead of save! Blogger fail
Tags: conference, blogging, Britmums Live