The Plan With Cardiff SEO Meet During Lockdown (& Beyond)
Posted on09/10/2020
Hello. This is the post I should’ve written in March. Or April. Or any month between the start of lockdown and now. I’m sorry it took me so long… I don’t want to make excuses, but with running my own business, a young family (and especially the effect that lockdown had on childcare initially), and other distractions, this got overlooked.
By now, you’ll have likely suspected that there won’t be any Cardiff SEO Meet events in the near future, given that the last event was in January (pre-lockdown).
I think it’s safe to say that there won’t be any Cardiff SEO Meet events until we return to some form of ‘normal’ – so likely in a post-vaccine world, whenever that may be.
I considered the idea of taking the events online, but I don’t think that’s for me. Plus when you consider that there were a fair few online events before lockdown, and that a lot of offline events (like mine) have now moved online, there’s now a lot of online events. I don’t want to add to the noise.
Not only that, but when we do return to ‘normal,’ I can’t see me rushing to put on an event straight away. As a person, I’m very much risk-averse, plus I’m also… well, I don’t want to say “lazy,” but I hate the idea of putting a lot of effort into something only to have to cancel it, so I can’t see myself running an event until we’re at the point where we’re a good few months past the all-clear stage.
In the meantime, I’ve refunded all sponsors who’d pre-paid for the cancelled March event and beyond. The venue (Tiny Rebel Cardiff) have also very kindly refunded me for what I’d paid towards the cancelled March event, for which I’m really grateful. Please support them by buying their stuff (I’m not a beer/ale drinker, but I’ve heard that their stuff is incredible).
If anyone based locally wants to run something similar to Cardiff SEO Meet – online or offline – in the meantime, you have my full support… as long as you’re not a jerk and/or not hosting events with all white male panels, haha.* I know that some meetups pass the torch onto someone else – I’m reluctant to do that (as I do still plan to do more events in the future), but I’m happy to help you, support you and promote you (e.g. spreading the love via the @CardiffSEOMeet Twitter account).
* If you need speakers, feel free to consult this list (for local) or this list (for beyond).
I realise as well that there’s no form of online community for the meetup. There’s a Meetup group, but it’s seldom used outside the events. If anyone in the Cardiff SEO Meet community wants to create a Slack, a WhatsApp group, or something else, then again – like I mentioned above – you’ll have my support.
Thank you to all supporters of the event to date: the attendees, the speakers, the sponsors, the venue, the suppliers, and probably a ton of other people I’ve forgotten (sorry). Hopefully we can all see each other properly soon – whenever that may be.
Stay safe.
