20-12-99

On a rather damp, cold Saturday afternoon - December the 11th- a
meeting was arranged. The venue was a bowling alley, the time was 2
o’clock and the participants were all "h2g2ers"! This was the day
that the Researchers came to meet the staff! In this edition we hear
from the staff; namely Mark, Peta and Anna.

First let’s see what Peta has to say:
The h2g2 Researcher Christmas party was really good fun. We all
managed to find each other, which wasn't that difficult, because
there was only one loud, noisy, group of people, saying things like:
'Really nice to meet you at last Evil Giraffe..' - it kind of gives
it away!

The bowling was entertaining, with plenty of time to get to know
each other. It's really nice that such a mixed group of people can
get on so well. Mark, Anna and I played on different teams. It’s a
good job we weren't playing competitively, because many of us turned
out to be fairly useless bowlers. Towel Master and Mark, however,
obviously both spent a degenerate youth down at the bowling alley;
they were actually doing fairly well.

So, bowling over, we headed off en masse to the pub, via Elephant and
Castle tube station. (If you ever go past that way there's a great
lift down to the platform - it kind of scolds you...'Don't obstruct
the doors', 'I said don't obstruct the doors'. 'Look, I've told you
once already ...')

We arrived at the pub, had a few beers and some food - and partied
until late. It was great fun: everyone was really nice and we all got
on very well.

So who was there?
Shazz and Towel
Master - who were easy to identify because they had made T
shirts with their names on, in large friendly letters. Towel Master
had come over from Holland specially, well, specially to be with
Shazz which is really cool.(!!? ed.) Huge thanks to Pastey, Psyduck and Bluebottle who were involved in checking out venues and setting the whole thing up. Well done guys. Pastey 2(Anne) Pastey’s 'other half' (the one without the fish) came along too and it was nice to see her again after the summer rounders do.
Evil Giraffe, Zedley, Peregrin, Jan ^, Beeline, Ant, Menz@@se and Ormondroyd, were there. Fate Amenable to Change came along with her somewhat bemused friend Kate, whose is not an h2g2 Researcher (but probably soon will be).
Lochangel came along, and I finally got to find out *all* of the names she goes under. I really had no idea that some of them were her. It was really nice to meet everyone. We will be doing it again - we think that we might have saved up enough for train tickets by Easter, so I look forward to the next one. Thanks for making it such fun everyone, I really enjoyed it.

P.S. On a real 'Welcome to the wonderful world of the web' note...
because we are such a sociable bunch, we got talking to another group of people in the pub, who were sitting on a nearby table. It turned out that they were *another* web community doing a 'get together', so we ended up talking to them too. So 'Hi' to Alex and the mysterynet.com people - I have just been over to their community and said hello; If you see them here make them welcome.

Doesn't that really knock it on the head for those people who say
that us webcreatures are unsociable? Being part of a Community is so
much more sociable than, say, watching TV. It really is.

Peta

Now here is Mark:

We had a fantastic real-world event - thanks to everyone who came
along to the bowling and pub event, my first meeting with the
community. It was, quite honestly, a ball; it's always slightly
nervy meeting people in real life when you've only previously 'talked' to them in an Internet community, but it was a really great event and the people as entertaining and friendly in real life as on the site. Guess what Anna scored in the first game? Yes... 42! There had to be one somewhere, didn't there? Modesty forbids me, however, from telling you who won the bowling with a phenomenal score of 151. (OK Mark, we admit that you won 1 game…ed).

And,last but not least: Anna

Met up with some h2g2 researchers last Saturday, and jolly good fun
it was too. It was great to actually put some faces to names at last. I love bowling, but am, unfortunately, not very good at it. In one round I got a score of 42. Spooky.

As a special treat to our readers this week, we have, at great expense, managed to obtain the rights to the photographs which were taken at the "gathering". If you absolutely MUST look at these, please bear in mind that there was a fair amount of alcohol involved in the proceedings!

Written by ShazzPRME