Looking back through the smoke...

The 1st Irish Open Coffee Club BBQ took place on July 16th. As the organiser of this event it is now time to sit back and look back on a very succesfull event.
About 100 attendees from all over the country (North & South), more than half a dozen excellent and varied talks, 5 excellent entries for the start-up competition and a very enjoyable BBQ in a beautifull setting can account for the success.
Apart from all the people that attended I owe a great big "Thank you!" to all the sponsors. It was inspiring to see how individuals and companies are willing to support a "new" event without demanding an instant return. I can only suggest that everybody has a look at the list of sponsors and think of them you have to make a purchase decision or need to outsource work.

All throughout the day there was a lot of informal networking between people that already knew each other and complete strangers. At the same time there were presentations taking place in the Terryglass Community Hall across the road. The topics were varied and the discussions and feedback were positive and valuable.
What was also good to find out that most of the networking & Open Coffee "virgins" found the day extremely valuable and most expressed an interest to attend future events.

I think the highlight of the day was the start-up competition where 5 entrepreneurs got the opportunity to pitch their idea to a panel of seasoned business people. The winner would receive a prize-pot that would help them to get their venture of the gound. Prizes included a laptop, software, web hosting, office space, consultancy service, web design vouchers etc..
I was delighted to see that in spite of it being an day with a high tech content that the winner of this competition was Daudi Kutta with his innovative sports bag design.

After the prizes were handed out everybody headed down to Terrryglass Quay for the BBQ. There were copious amounts of food thanks to Deborah Hadley from Spicendipity and Mrs. Bopp as well as drinks thanks to Britvic and Bubble Brothers. The day ended around 11 pm at which time I had just about enough energy to drag my tired body home for a well earned rest...

However the next one is already being planned!

photographs courtesy of Will Knott esq.