25 things I learned over the Cybermummy11 weekend

1. The Travelodge on City Road was even noisier than I thought it would be.

2. If you sleep in a noisy room, you sleep much better on the second night.

3. The Travelodge is also around the corner from a building I used to visit for meetings regularly nearly 20 years ago. I only realised this on Friday.

4. A maxi dress was a damned good choice of outfit. Nothing to ride up, nothing to slide down and comfortable for everything. And I found a dress that didn't make me look like a pair of curtains!

5. Meeting so many people that you've known for months but never met before is not only weird, but overwhelming. Had I been at a conference with over 400 real strangers and only a few people that I knew before, I don't think it would have been quite so overwhelming.


6. When I get overwhelmed, I forget to tweet so much.

7. The conference layout was good, because the exhibition space was well away from most of the meeting rooms and didn't disrupt the main conference sessions.

8. Cybermummy Central needed more chairs so people could sit down to eat if they wanted.

9. The lovely Recharge Room wasn't anything like as quiet when people invade it to sit and eat lunch. See point 8.

10. You don't have to use lots of long fancy words to be an excellent public speaker. Sarah Brown was a brilliant listen, because she is genuine, honest and a mum who does the same things with her children that we do with ours. I wish I'd had time to chat to her.

11. The best workshops for bloggers were those that were presented by other bloggers who have their own area of expertise.

Posh hair by Michael Douglas

12. Opinion is divided whether I really look like my Twitter avatar. Plenty of people walked straight up to me and said "Hello Kate," but several had to be told who I was and told me I look nothing like it.

13.  Apparently, I even sound like my avatar.

14. Also apparently, I am a lot taller than my avatar. Which is good as my avatar is only a few pixels high. (I'm 5ft 8 in case you don't know).

15. A lot of Cybermummy seemed to be about the food, apart from the party at the end, when there was none other than crisps and Twiglets.

16. Michael Douglas, the street barber (not the actor) really IS from Leyland. He did my hair and we chatted about local pubs!

17. It is impossible to meet everyone you want to meet out of 400+ bloggers. There will be people you will miss and they will miss you.

18. Sitting down at meals is a better way of properly getting to know other people than just mingling over drinks.

19. I honestly couldn't believe how much stuff I got given wherever I went at Cybermummy.

20. You can't attend every session. Even if you skip a session or two, you will still feel overloaded at the end of the day.

21. When I eat late, I can't seem to finish my food. This may be a blessing.

22. You can pack a lot more into an expanding trolley case than you will ever imagine. See point 19.

23. Said trolley case is much harder to control when packed solid.

24. People who steal cables from railway lines really stuff up train services.

25. And finally... don't mess with Nickie at Typecast. I think I already knew this but I definitely know it now. (She is lovely, honest. And she also made me cry, but that was from reading her post out, not being mean).

Thanks to Sandy for arranging Meet Greet and Eat and putting together the most amazing goody bags, Jane for organising a post-conference curry, Kate and Penny for arranging a little evening Bellini reception and finally, Susanna, Jennifer and Sian for organising Cybermummy itself. 

And a huge thanks to Seaworld Parks for sponsoring me and giving me the opportunity to attend and to meet some many great bloggers. Sorry I didn't get to meet you all.