-OFFICIAL REPORT-
Yesterday I was blessed enough to be able to attend the Ozark Area Steemit Meetup, along with six other steemians. It was really an amazing time of discussion, brainstorming, and learning. It also became a very long day for a few of us, as we had the Steemit Talk Podcast afterward, but I’ll do a separate post on my podcast experience. In this post I’ll cover the meetup in general, and then focus a bit on each steemian that I met there, and my impressions of them.
The Meetup
The meetup itself was amazing. Overall, there was a lot of discussion on ways to continue to improve steemit and add more value to the community. The electrifying excitement of the influence on steem on our lives provided a very entertaining and positive environment to interact in.
What amazed me as well was all of the knowledge that the other steemians brought to the table. I think that all who attended learned quite a bit and got a lot to consider and think about. The individual focus displayed throughout the group was the need to create a more encouraging and helpful environment for others to interact in. Obviously many on steemit are very encouraging and helpful, but our user retention rate certainly has room for improvement, so we can always be improving on critical aspects like these.
We had a lot of laughs, shared a few secrets we wouldn’t post on the blockchain, and really enjoyed the time together. I think that it was an amazing group of users who made it, and the meetup was another testimony of the incredible effect that steemit can have on people’s lives.
@giftedgaia
My previous interaction with @giftedgaia had been limited, but we had spent some time talking in the past. He’s the one who really ran with the Ozark Area Steemian Meetup idea, and took the lead on getting me up to the studio for the podcast too!
I remember back around Christmas when he walked me through setting up my mic so I could with Steemit Talk Postcast crew on discord and discuss a bit about these ideas verbally, rather than typing. Since I wasn’t one who had previously listened in on the podcast, I knew very little about his personality before the meetup. Throughout the day, though, we really hit it off, and I look forward to hopefully stopping by again to hang out some more.
His helpfulness and humorous wit remind me of myself in ways, and by the end of the day, he was like a long-time friend, rather than a new acquaintance. I’ll share more about him when I do my Steemit Talk Podcast recap post.
@jessamynorchard
Now here is one talented and exciting steemian. Personally, I think that she is a thoughtful and inspirational person with a genuine attitude and outlook. When @senseiteekay and @verbal-d teamed up with me to form @the-blockchain, @jessamynorchard was one of the first to offer to collaborate with us. Though @giftedgaia wound up winning the poster from @the-blockchain in one of the games that we played at the meetup, @jessamynorchard inspired me to get some prints made, which I will then ship to both @verbal-d & @senseiteekay so that we can all autograph them. We plan on running some sort of giveaway then with the prints signed by every member of @the-blockchain.
@sirlunchthehost & @jessamynorchard have both expressed a deep desire to get one of those!
Hopefully, if the STEEMSTOCK Music & Art Festival being planned by @riosparada manifests itself in reality, perhaps she can be among the steemit musicians who play at the event. We will see!
@full-steem-ahead
Somehow, although @full-steem-ahead has been on steemit for months before @papa-pepper even, I had previously missed him on my steemit radar. Thankfully he attended the meetup, though, because he is a wealth of knowledge on crytpocurrencies and a lot of other things.
He is another down-to-earth and pleasant user that I sincerely appreciated meeting in person. I took in a lot of information, but the majority of it may have come from @full-steem-ahead. I’m looking forward to combing through his previous posts to learn more!
Hopefully, I'll have the chance to meetup with him again!
@stellabelle
@stellabelle is one of “powerful” non-whales with a huge reputation, and I really didn’t know what to expect when I met her. However, she is a very interesting and entertaining individual with a real concern for the future of steemit. Her care for people and desire to help is most excellent. She has even been hard at work trying to make it easier for facebook users and other n00bs to be able to successfully enter the steemit ecosystem. Check out her post on “steemit newbies” for more info on that!
Many of you probably even know more about her than I do, but please check out her recent post on the meetup (if you have not already done so) and make sure to pay special attention to her STEEMIT ALL-DAY WORKSHOP which is being planned for June of this year near Kansas City, MO. I think it’ll be an excellent opportunity to meet, learn, interact, and introduce some new people to what we are up to on steemit.
Personally, I plan on being there and helping out, and I heard something about “FREE LUNCH” too.
Also, @stellabelle came for the Meetup and stayed for the Podcast, so the @little-peppers got to meet her and we got to hang out some more too… and do a shot of hot sauce together! (More about that on my upcoming Steemit Talk Podcast recap post.)
One excellent idea that @stellabelle had to make sure to do at the meetup was to make this incredible video too! You can resteem her post on it, and like it one YouTube too!
@starrkravenmaf
@starrkravenmaf was another user with whom I’d barley ever interacted previously. She hit it off really well with @winstonwolfe, because of their mutual interest in photography. She was introduced to steemit by @jessamynorchard.
It was nice to talk to her, and see her heart for encouraging others and focus on building up both the community and other individuals as well. It’s so nice to be able to put faces, and the individuals behind those faces, with the usernames! Meeting people in person is so rewarding, and I’m glad that I now can know who is behind the @starrkravenmaf posts!
@winstonwolfe
This is the guy behind the most excellent “THIS IS YOUR MOMENT” steemit crowdsourced video and a main member of the Steemit Talk Podcast crew. He had contacted many months ago about possibly being a guest on the podcast, and I’m glad that we finally got to pull that off, in the studio nonetheless!
Obviously, none of us has time to check out every post from every user, so, although I had been exposed to some of his work before, I didn’t really even have a good idea of who he was. Though I thought he would be a little older, he’s still an incredible guy with many talents and a great focus on the future of our community! Plus, he can handle his Hot Sauce Shots pretty well too!
CONCLUSION
I hope that you enjoyed my recap of our recent meetup, and I also hope that you’ll personally invite me to any meetup you put together or become aware of. Though I’ve never been out of North America, I still get around quite a bit, and have definitely spent days driving to more distant locations before, so even though I might not be able to make it to a lot of the future meetups, I’ll definitely at least consider coming!
I think that the more events that we have offline, the more value that we will add to the community as well, and the more that we will continue to distance ourselves from other online platforms. @stellabelle is even considering creating a steemit commune! I don’t think I’ve seen that from Facebook or Reddit yet! LOL!
Anyway, let’s keep going and growing, interacting and encouraging, and taking things to the next level! I appreciate all of you and am glad to be here on steemit with you!
STEEMIT LIKE YOU MEAN IT!!!
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