{"id":2411,"date":"2015-01-25T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bisexualblogs.wordpress.com\/?p=29"},"modified":"2015-01-25T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-25T18:00:00","slug":"the-first-bitopia-meet-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/2015\/01\/the-first-bitopia-meet-up\/","title":{"rendered":"The First BiTopia Meet Up!"},"content":{"rendered":"

First\u00a0published\u00a0in January 2014, the date of our first meet up.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before the big day I\u2019d tried to do as much preparation as possible to ensure the event ran smoothly. I\u2019d promoted it online. I packed everything I\u2019d need the week before. I found a purple shoelace towear round my wrist so people would be able to spot I was the group organiser. I also needed something to put on the table for people to be able to identify us without outing us to other members of the public. I looked around my room for something suitable and promoted my rubber duck from shelf clutter to group mascot.\"bitopiaduck\"<\/p>\n

On the day I had a few feels but wasn\u2019t too nervous. Work passed very slowly.<\/p>\n

That evening I brought a book in case no one turned up for a while but didn\u2019t need it: as soon as I walked in I spotted someone wearing a necklace with the bi flag on!<\/p>\n

I\u2019d hoped to get five people attending the first meet up so was astonished to have twelve attendees within about fifteen minutes of the start time. Mission accomplished! I couldn\u2019t believe how far people had come either; Leicester, Derby and rural Lincolnshire were all represented. Everyone seemed to have a good time and get on really well with each other.<\/p>\n

I was able to relax, enjoy myself and get to know everyone as the event needed very little involvement from me. People introduced attendees to others, instigated a round of name sharing when someone new arrived and even encouraged each other to swap seats to ensure everyone got a chance to speak to everyone else! The venue was very bi-friendly & made us feel very welcome.<\/p>\n

In total we had 17 people who came for the event, along with 3 others who saw someone they knew and stuck around.<\/p>\n

What a perfect evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet up to anything last night?\u201d my work colleagues asked.
\n\u201cNah. Just stayed in and watched a movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kept smiling when no one was looking.<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t wait for the next meet up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First published in January 2014, the date of our first meet up. Before the big day I’d tried to do as much preparation as possible to ensure the event ran smoothly. I’d promoted it online. I packed everything I’d need the week before. I found a purple shoelace towear round my wrist so people would be able … Continue reading The First BiTopia Meet Up!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":1211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nottingham-bitopia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}