The Moonriver Cruisecamp: a stellar event

(photo by Johnny Beirne)

The first ever CruiseCamp (like a BarCamp, but with more water) was lots of fun last night. (Edit:) It was held on the Moonriver Cruises based in Carrick on Shannon.

Thanks to Leitrim County Enterprise Board and Johnny Beirne for organising.

Thanks to the other sponsors as well:

Leon Quinn – Reverb Studios
James McLoughlin – Absolute Safety
Stephen Hennessy – The Country Cooking Company

What I learned at Cruise Camp

I also learned a few things about event organisation which we can apply to future events like the proposed Northwest Connects event.

Free events need tickets: Johnny Beirne used EventBrite to manage the ticket ‘sales’(they were free, but you had to register). Right from the start it was exciting to come back and see who was on the list to attend. Another good thing is he required the tickets to be printed out and brought for admission. This is a VERY good idea for free events. I’ve co-planned free events in the past through the Drupal Ireland user group and we found more people show up for a free event than are registered.

There’s actually an Irish company: Event Elephant that helps manage event planning/registration.

A mixer game and good facilitator relaxes people and sets the mood: There was also a fun get-to-know-you activity, which I think alot of people had fun with. James (@James_TeamLife) from TeamLife coaching/training put together a bingo sheet where we had to find “someone who lived outside Ireland for more than 6 months”, and “someone who started a company in the last 3 years,” etc. We had to mix round the room and put the names and info of a bunch of people. The reason I LOST was due to the fact that I enjoyed meeting new people and exchanging cards. (that’s my excuse anyway). It was a very good start to the evening at Cruise Camp.

You might want to ask James for a copy of his bingo sheet if you want to try something similar. People with facilitating skills are really good for events. I don’t think there’s enough understanding of the importance of a facilitator for events and meetings in Ireland. I’ve been to too many meetings which relied on a so-called agenda to get people to collaborate and share ideas. Trust me, no agenda ever brought about creative solutions and good conversation. You have to get people moving and doing things.

And Prizes & a goodie bag! OK, this was just cream on the cake, but a fun way for the sponsors to promote their goods. There were spot prizes to people whose names were pulled out of a bag. I thought there might be prizes for ‘best something something’but this was certainly more fair.

My favorite item in the goodie bag  we got at the end was the Cannaboe Confectionery chocolates. That was a treat. I see they also do wedding cakes

I didn’t swap my 75 business cards, but I made some good connections! I think I might even have an opportunity for someone I met at the event. In fact, I have to make a call about it now!