MKGN — David Hughes

24 December 2023

Weeknote 24th December 2023

Christmas Eve in what has been a oddly quiet December.

No Christmas Do with my employer or my suppliers boooo!

No family trip to Bruges due to my wife’s school term not finishing until the 22nd.

And through poor planning my Christmas catch ups with my friends all ended up in this week, well apart from one that isn’t free until January, and then two of the three events got torpedoed by external events. FFS…

I was due to meet a friend for lunch on Thursday but I had to cancel at the last minute as I was managing a response to a malware attack – yes really.

On Friday I should have been staying with a friend for Christmas beers but his daughter has caught Covid and being ‘high risk’ I decided not to take risk this close to Christmas.

The event that went ahead was our MK Geek Night Christmas dinner with Andy and Roo the lovely chaps that have helped us with the sound since MKGN #3. We couldn’t run MKGN without them, they are a human security blanket when it comes to managing the sound and associated technology.

We watched Love Actually for the first in many years, and enjoyed it much more than I expected. The scene with Emma Thompson and Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now is heart wrenching every single time I watch it.

My wife and I had a very pleasant lunch and wander around Cambridge on Saturday – I can highly recommend Fitzbillies mince pies and the mulled wine from the Cambridge Wine Merchants is very good indeed, even without the optional shot of whisky.

This morning my daughter and I popped over to the new Caffeine & Machine in Houghton Conquest, it was very quiet indeed but will be interesting as a more local alternative to the original C&M in Warwickshire.

The rest of the day was spent prepping for tomorrow followed by our traditional family viewing of Home Alone.

Merry Christmas ya filthy animals!

10 December 2023

Weeknote 10th December 2023

I was in London for a Christmas event with a supplier on Tuesday evening. The event took place at a rooftop bar deep in the City of London – a venue I imagine would be fabulous in the summer months.

On Thursday, I co-hosted the 46th MK Geek Night, this time at a new venue, The South Central Institute of Technology at MK College, Bletchley. We had the usual new venue teething problems, but they were quickly ironed out by our awesome tech chums Andy and Ron, and a great evening was had by all.

Two great talks from AJ & Ceb and my friend Documentally, superb food from the college brasserie and excellent beer from local brewer GRID Beer Project.

On Saturday we headed down to Oxford for the “Oxford Triangle” of coffee at Society, lunch at Mowgli Street Food and hot chocolate at Knoops.

It’s notable the impact the new modern shopping centre has had on Oxford with many empty shops on the old High Street and a feeling of slow decline and decay, not helped by the constant stream of old diesel buses that rattle through Oxford constantly.

3 January 2013

MK Geek Night – 2012

I deliberately omitted one of the biggest highlights of last year from my 2012 post as it deserves a post all of its own. When Richard and I launched MK Geek Night I don’t think either of us honestly expected it would grow as quickly as it has. We went from the idea of a few local web types meeting in a pub, to an evening event with speakers and sponsors.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the support we’ve had from the web community; almost every speaker we’ve approached has happily agreed to speak, and we aren’t taking no for an answer from the other two…

MKGN #1 – June 2012

We were blown away when Jon Hicks and Brendan Dawes, two of our favourite speakers, agreed to speak at the inaugural MK Geek Night.

Our fabulous venue,The Buszy, can hold 200 people, I’d said if we had 100 attendees I’d be happy. In the end yet we came incredibly close to selling out that first event.

The evening went very well, and the feedback we had from attendees was great – we just needed more seats and better beer.

MKGN #2 – Sept 2012

For the second MK Geek Night we secured two of the tallest men in web design in Cole Henley and Ben Bodien.

We had more seats and better beer and we sold out!

We also had an evening of audio problems apparently caused by the sheer volume of bodies in the room, but even with the audio gremlins we had another great night.

MKGN #3 – Dec 2012

The first MK Geek Night Christmas Special sold out in days; we even had our sponsor Heart Internet offer tickets as a competition prize.

We had two fabulous speakers in Aral Balkan and Dave Addey, who stood in at a days notice for Sarah Parmenter who was unable to to make it, but promises to join us in 2013.

This time we had professional quality audio after a bunch of lovely chaps got in touch and offered their services for free – did I mention how much I love our community? The added bonus is that we now have recordings of the talk that we will be releasing as podcasts – soon.

MKGN #4 – March 2013

As if our incredible Christmas Special wasn’t enough of a high to end 2012 on we released tickets for MKGN #4 the following day and they sold out in eight hours. Eight hours!

2013

2013 is looking like an even bigger year for MK Geek Night. We have incredible speakers lined up right the way through to the 2013 Christmas Special, and we have continuing support from our marvellous sponsors.

But most importantly MK Geek Night has developed its own community and its own momentum, and I’m happy and proud to be part of the team that guides that momentum.

14 June 2012

MK Geek Night

A week today my friend Richard Wiggins and I will be hosting the first ever MK Geek Night – a new, FREE, Milton Keynes based event for the creative industries.

We’ve attended the excellent Oxford Geek Night a few times, and this inspired Richard to do something similar for Milton Keynes.

Now Richard claims he asked me directly to get involved, but I can’t say I remember this, of course that might have been because it was over a beer or more, but after a few chats and questions I was suddenly one of the organisers.

We originally thought the event would be a small meet up in a pub, with a local speaker or two, but as we chatted and planned the scope grew. This may or may not have been my fault.

We thought we’d aim high and see what happens, so we drew up a list of the speakers we’ve loved seeing speak and started approaching them. So far everyone we have approached has said yes; to say we’re blown away is an understatement – we now have amazing speakers booked up for our first four events.

The first MK Geek Night will feature the incomparable Jon Hicks and Brendan Dawes. I know! And you can see them speak for FREE.

Our biggest challenge turned out to be finding the right venue. As we had such great speakers a pub really wasn’t going to work, and we didn’t want to hold it in a soulless ‘function room’. Then Richard found The Buszy a fabulous new community art space over the old Milton Keynes bus station. The Buszy has everything we need, is in a great location for those travelling from inside and outside of Milton Keynes and can accommodate up to 200 people.

200 people! How did we go from a small meet up in a pub to an event with top line speakers and an audience of almost 200? As I type this there is a small number of tickets still available – reserve yours now.

We’ve been able to make MK Geek Night a free event due to the generous support of some great companies. If you’d like to support future MK Geek Nights please get in touch.

So, one week to go, a line up of amazing speakers and an audience of almost 200… gulp!

I’ll admit I’m a little nervous, but I’m also incredibly excited – MK Geek Night is going to be a fantastic night, I hope you can join us there.