February’s Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe is back tomorrow, Friday 19th February from 10am-12pm (sign up via EventBrite).

This month we are kindly sponsored by Karen Thomas who is responsible for her prolific anti-bullying, anti-discrimination campaigning and emotional support service. She’s everywhere from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and will be at the cafe tomorrow.

The venue is the Court Street Creative Arches and the full address and postcode for Sat Nav etc is:

6 Creative Railway Arches
Court Street
Leamington Spa
CV31 2DW

For all the latest information follow @cwmsc on Twitter and don’t forget to sign up now on EventBrite

PS. Don’t forget to put your glad-rags on, as they are shooting a promotional video for the Creative Arches and you could play a starring role

Thanks to everyone who came to last month’s Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe – including first-timers Neil from Xolve (who has office space in Rugby that he is interested in ‘warm-desking’ out – get in touch with him for more details) and the guys from GreenGeek in Sydenham who run a not-for-profit computer recycling company. Thanks to Ruralnet Futures for sponsoring the event (have a sneak preview of their latest website for the Central Warwickshire Villages LEADER programme).

December has turned out to be crazy busy month for all involved, so we’re giving the Cafe a Christmas break, but will be back in 2010 on Janury 15th 10am-12pm – Sign-up now and if you’d like to sponsor the event (covering the cost of coffees and delicious Olive Garden pastries) then get leave a comment or get in touch via twitter or email.

In the mean time have a great Christmas and a very social New Year!

The November Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe is taking place tomorrow, 20th November 2009 and this month is sponsored by Ruralnet Futures.

Based in Warwickshire, Ruralnet Futures brings a wealth of experience of web design, consultancy, training and development to help clients and build and use social media and other online tools.

The event is free to attend at the Court Street Creative Arches in Leamington from 10am.  Please sign-up if you’re able to come and we look forward to seeing you there.

In case you haven’t been to a social media cafe before it’s a place to meet up with other local people working in the public, private and charity sectors to talk about what they do and how they do it, online and offline.

Conversations are varied and there are lots of chats about social media – but this is not a geek-fest, it’s about getting people away from their desks for a couple of hours to mix and mingle.  If you’re completely new to social media, or don’t know where it might fit in with your business, organisation or freelance work – pop in and have a coffee, there will be someone around to chat things over with you.

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow and don’t forget to spread the word about CWSMC.

This month’s Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe is taking place on Friday 20th November and we’re looking for a sponsor to follow in the footsteps of Screen WM and PickleJar Communications who sponsored the first two events.

We just ask to cover the costs of delicious coffees and pastries supplied by the Olive Garden Cafe (about £100) in return we can give you  lots of thanks, mentions and posts on the website and Twitter and a chance to say a few words to a captive audience on the day.

If you’re interested in sponsoring this month or a future cafe, then either:

• leave a comment
• email info@cwsmc.com
• or drop a tweet to @cwsmc

We’d love to hear from you and don’t forget to Sign-up for this month’s cafe.

We’re really pleased to have Pickle Jar Communications as our sponsor for the next Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe which will be taking place on October 16th 2009.

Pickle Jar Communications is a communications consultancy with specialist expertise in new and social media communications, that was established in 2007 by former University of Warwick employee and Head of Research-TV, Tracy Playle.

The event is free to attend at the Court Street Creative Arches in Leamington from 10am.  Please sign-up if you’re able to come and we look forward to seeing you there.

At about 9.30am on Friday 18th September  there were some mildly nervous Rays (Smith and Betty) and Pauls (Squires and Henderson) getting ready for the first CWSMC. But we needn’t have been worried as we saw the ‘on our way’ tweets coming in and by 10am there was already a great hum of chatter going on as everyone made their assault on the pastry mountain.

The turn out for the first cafe was everything and more than we had hoped for.  About people 25 came, chatted, made contacts and found out more about what is going on around social media in Warwickshire. A really good mix of people from local government, universities, arts organisations, private companies and freelancers came and we are so happy that everyone gave it a punt for the first one.

We kept formalities to a minium (and didn’t want to interrupt the chat and networking) but the few official words we did say were captured below (and broadcast live on Qik by Dom Breadmore)

Some of the other comments that were tweeted

@amy_clarkeuk:

Back in office after the first ever coventry / warwickshire social media cafe – and what a very good cafe it was too! #cwsmc

@matthawthorne:

Good to meet @getgood, @kazThomas at #cwsmc today. Will be going again for sure. Thanks @paulhenderson.

and @katehughes:

I very much enjoyed @cwsmc this morning. Met some lovely folk and got poked in the eye by @paulsq. That’s all I look for in an event really.

Big thanks go to Ray Smith and Warwick District Council for the use of the Court Street Creative Arches (and we’ll be back for the next CWSMC in October), Ray Betty and Konnex Networks for WiMax-ing us up, ScreenWM for sponsoring the coffees and (endless) pastries supplied by The Olive Garden, and Sarah Allen for putting is in touch with Ray and making it all possible.

Thanks to everyone who came especially Philip John all the way from Lichfield (enabling us to compare notes with his social media cafe) and Nicky Getgood from Birmingham with her Talk About Local hat on.

What next?

Well can’t promise to poke your eye out, but we are definitely making this a regular event. So if you came and enjoyed it,  tell your colleagues and friends (especially if they’re not on Twitter) that the 3rd Friday of every month is going to be the date in the diary for the CWSMC.  We’ll be back at the Creative Arches again for the next one on October 16th 10am-12pm.

Sign up on the wiki or just turn up on the day- look forward to seeing you and thanks again for making it such a great event.

• More pictures on Flickr (tag your pictures cwsmc if you took any on the day )
• Tweets tagged #cwsmc

We’re delighted to confirm Screen WM as the sponsors of the first Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe taking place on September 18th 2009.

The Social Media Cafe is a place where anyone with an interest in the web, social media, and digital media in general can get together and possibly build working relationships.

Screen WM are sponsoring Social Media Cafe through their Program of Activities Fund supported by regional development agency Advantage West Midlands.

The event is free to attend at the Court Street Creative Arches in Leamington from 10am.  Please sign-up if you’re able to come and we look forward to seeing you there.

More info in the official press release…

Download the press release as a PDF or read it in full below:

LAUNCH OF COVENTRY AND WARWICKSHIRE SOCIAL MEDIA CAFE

First event: 18 September 2009, Court Street Creative Arches, Leamington Spa

September 7 2009: Today sees the launch of the first Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe, a new, monthly event designed to bring people and businesses with an interest in digital and social media, together.

The Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe will be a place where anyone with an interest in the web, social media, and digital media in general can get together and possibly build working relationships.

From a concept originally launched in London, the Social Media Cafe has been launched with considerable success in Birmingham and Oxford. However, until now, there has been nothing catering for people and businesses in Coventry and Warwickshire, an area with a rich mix of digital media producers, games producers, creative agencies, and commissioners.

The first Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe will take place on Friday 18^th September, 10am – 12pm, at Arch 6 within the brand new Court Street Creative Arches in Leamington Spa, thanks to the kind generosity of Warwick District Council Business Enterprise.

Paul Henderson, co-organiser of the event said:

“The Social Media Cafe has been very popular elsewhere in the UK. We are very excited about bringing it to Coventry and Warwickshire.”

Paul Squires, co-organiser, said:

“Everyone is welcome at the Social Media Cafe. If you’ve heard about Twitter but want to know more about its potential, or if you’re from an established design studio or games company, this is the place for you.”

Jason Hall, Head of Innovation, from Screen WM, the lead agency for film, television and digital media in the West Midlands region, said:

“We are very excited to sponsor the first Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Café through our Program of Activities Fund supported by regional development agency Advantage West Midlands. Developments such as Channel 4’s 4iP fund being based here in the West Midlands and the match funding provided by Screen WM has positioned the region as the centre of the digital media revolution in the UK, something that the Social Media Cafe can only help to build and grow.”

Ray Smith, Enterprise Development Manager at Warwick District Council, said:

“Our projects are all about supporting new and high-growth businesses by developing affordable, creative workspaces. We are delighted to support the Coventry and Warwickshire Social Media Cafe by hosting it within the brand new Court Street Creative Arches.”

Arch 6 has been enabled with WiMax by Konnex Networks, so you can bring your laptop and connect directly to the Internet. Refreshments are sponsored by Screen WM.

The event is free. For further information and to sign up, visit www.cwsmc.com.