As the cliché says, you can take the girl out of Scotland … I’m from Ayrshire, and I’ve lived in the US since 1998. I like to combine trips to see family with professional events whenever possible, so as well as the camaraderie of being part of ScotNet and enjoying the newsletter, I do keep an eye on the Save the Date messages to see if I’ll be able to fit something in. Never the AGM/Christmas meeting, so far, but other times of year sometimes work for me, including the recent online Show & Tell events, of course! Those make for a good morning tea break from here in Colorado.
I looked back to see if I could find when I first joined ScotNet, but I can’t find the record. I’d guess 2007, but it was certainly by early 2009. The first event I attended was the summer weekend in Perth in 2009. Chris Durban and Ros Schwartz spoke on the subject of “Style Matters”. To this day I am still using some tips that I first heard then. The theme for summer weekends for me is sporting venues, as after that one at Perth FC, it was nine years before I attended another at Melrose RFC in 2018. Gaston Dorren spoke about his fascinating book, Lingo, and Helen Robertson did an afternoon workshop. Maybe we can keep up the sporting theme next time and it’ll be at a golf course.
More recently, I was the speaker at the October 2019 event in Edinburgh, where the topic was technical writing. That trip was the last time I was in Scotland. Both of my planned 2020 trips were cancelled due to the pandemic. You can be sure that when I can get back in without quarantining, I’ll be there!