Morning John. I write this on the last day of term! ever since I started attending teachmeets I’ve been conscious of the fact that at many I learn new things or new ways to do old things. I’ve also tried to present at some in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stornoway and Inverness. The last one was the SLF get together in Citizen M hotel which was great as it was so relaxed and the free pizza/sushi helped people who just wanted to sit and chat rather than sit politely listening to the greats like Kenny Pieper, Ian Stuart and so on. I’m not sure whether we should now be thinking about just facilitating a location, IT facilities and scoff and just let people sit down for a couple of hours with a beer and just TALK. Maybe set up wee talk circles/round tables? We tried that at Strathclyde Uni one Saturday where people just rotated between rooms according to what took their fancy regarding what was happening in each room. They could also swap ‘stuff’ – I always come away from teachmeets with new resources so long as I remember to take a flash drive or two and am always happy to bring along all my stuff for people to copy/select what they want. In summary, a location with decent facilities, LOTS of people attending in a social rather than formal ‘teaching’ atmosphere and the ability to talk/exchange ideas and resources. Mind you I tried that in Inverness years ago and 7 people turned up! I am always grateful to those who organise these things and the likes of David Cameron for coming along and invigorating us all – I need a dose of David at least once a year to keep me going in teaching!