Back in March this year I was invited to attend a brand new event all the way over in Bournemouth called Meetdraw. Bournemouth and Portsmouth aren't exactly next door neighbours, but Paul Seys, one of the events organisers really encouraged me to show up. This is how our conversation unfolded:

Adam (hesitantly): "Well, the meet-up's subject is right, and the idea is great... but I'm just not sure..."
Paul: "Alright, you're twistin' my arm here, but how 'bout I thrown in a big hunk of meat and we call it a deal?"
Adam: "Sold!!"

The Meetdraw marketing team has obviously studied their key conference-attending demographic and reached this conclusion:
1. Lets face it, web designers don't eat salad!
2. The conference-attending designers are all bloodthirsty carnivores.

With this in mind they knew that offering "free salad!" to every attendee would get them nowhere. And thus, Meetdraw was born.

For those who couldn't be at the latest instalment of Meetdraw, this is a roundup of what you missed!

It's Lime Time

Now before I continue with the review of this week's event I want to tell you about an online service I'm the UK Rep for. In case you haven't heard of this truly brilliant Content Management System, let me introduce PageLime; an on demand CMS for designers. I have some other blog posts lined up all about PageLime, so stay tuned.

The system is perfect for a freelancer or small business where their clients want to maintain the content of their site but aren't ready for a full blown content management system. The web designer simply specifies an editable region in their CSS with a class element and then their client can edit text, images, links or whatever else the designer allows them to.

Meetdraw 3 - my unofficial photo set

Tom McLeod, the founder of PageLime had asked me to get some snaps at the event for a new feature on their blog called the LimeLight, a photo gallery of people holding limes. (Such as this high-calibre celebrity)

Here's a couple of the best ones, checkout the whole set on Flickr.

Nice to meat you!

Unfortunately I couldn't make it to Meetdraw 2, but in comparison to the first Meetdraw the turnout was exceptional! The new venue, the Winchester Pub was a great choice, lots of space compared to the iBar where the first Meetdraw was held. There was also a much welcomed free drinks and free meaty snacks on offer.

This time I arrived early and managed to chat with a lot of the attendees, including Michael Wilson from D-Lists, a lot of the Refreshed Media team, Keith McGregor and Neil Dennis from Strawberrysoup and also lots of students and freelancers.

By the sounds of things Meetdraw 4 is going to be bigger and better with the appropriate title Meetdraw 4: the Christmas Meetball. I look forward to seeing you all there!