BBG18 done and dusted

Just back from our 18th Bahrain bloggers’ gathering, which this time happened at Cinnabon in the Diplomatic Area, by the Crown Plaza.

Present this time were Strav, Sadeq Shehabi, Mohammed Muskati, Salman Rahmah, Tariq Khonji and myself. It was fun and lively this time. It’s the first time for me at Cinnabon, it’s quite spacious and although Salman complained that the music was a bit too loud, it was tolerable and we could hear each other talking.

The talk was good and constructive; we discussed not only ways to increase the awareness of blogging in Bahrain, but also giving something back to the community by creating seminars/workshops, as well as other initiatives concerned with blogging:

1. Meet with relevant newspaper editors to talk to them about blogging and explore ways to get them to feature us in their papers in a regular fashion.
2. Firm up the place and time of the monthly gathering so that everyone knows where it is without it having to be announced every time, and without going through shenanigans every single time! So from now on, the Bahrain Bloggers’ Gathering will happen on the first Thursday of the month, at 8pm at Cinnabon in the Diplomatic Area and you are more then welcome to join us, bloggers as well as our esteemed readers.
3. I will once again do a weekly roundup of Bahraini blogs and post it here. The best day for me to do that I think is Friday. This is by no means in competition with GV, it’s more like a complementary thing.
4. That roundup will be issued as a Press Release and sent to ALL the local papers where they are more than welcome to publish it.
5. I will create a free blog hosting service on my server. I’ve still to find the technical details and consider bandwidth budgets and all that, but I think it is very doable. If you know of a WordPress multi-site plugin or installation method/documentation, please let me know. If you are a business and would like to sponsor the creation of this new service, please contact me

This is all done in the hope of increasing blogging and its awareness in Bahrain particularly, and the region of course, but as we currently enjoy much better freedoms of expression in Bahrain compared to others in the region, it would be foolish not to use this right.

Thanks to all who attended, and we really missed those who didn’t but hope that you enjoyed your evening nevertheless… which brings in another question that was raised: do you think that we should move the gathering to a weekday night instead of Thursday? Would that encourage you to attend? How about doing the gathering on Thursday but earlier in the day, say around 5pm?

Do you have any other input to the thoughts outlined above? Your thoughts would be highly appreciated.

G’night!

update: 060505L1624 – forgot to mention that Strav was actually with us too! Me bad. Anyway, please visit his blog for his take of he gathering and some pictures too. Sorry Strav!