South Coast Summit 2023
This year I had the opportunity to go to the South Coast Summit. This is 1 of the larger Microsoft Community Events in the UK. The event had about 1400 registered visitors.
On Friday there were several workshops during the day that you could register for. I participated in the New Community Speaker workshop. This was a fantastic experience where a number of people from the community shared a lot of tips and tricks.
The ’trainers’ for this workshop were:
Zoe Wilson Sara Fennah Paddy Byrne Among other things, we got tips on how to write a good summary for when you submit a session and where to find events you can register for.
New Community Speaker workshop
A number of videos were also shown of various people from that community sharing their experiences in different areas. These videos can also be found online: https://www.youtube.com/@microsoftnewspeakerscommunity/videos
On Friday evening was the UK Community Awards gala. Here, awards were divided into different categories. Although I was 1 of the nominees, I was unfortunately not a finalist. But it’s fair to say that looking at the finalists, there’s no shame in not making it to the final. The gala was a mix of James Bond or Austin Power…
On Saturday, the event itself took place. It started early that day as I was also a volunteer, so there was another one to be done before the visitors and speakers came.
I mainly stood at the registration desk to check people in. This is always a nice way to start an event because you immediately run into an old acquaintance.
In the morning itself I didn’t attend any other sessions. After the registration desk we caught up with different people and visited some sponsors.
At 13:30 it was time for my session. It was a bit of a shock when I found out exactly where the session was. This was not in a separate room, but in the expo hall between all the sponsors and visitors. So in addition to the people who are at your session, you also have visitors who walk around, etc. I was afraid that this would be very disruptive, but once you’re on this stage you don’t notice it right away.
Fortunately, some people also came to my session, and afterwards had some good questions about the content. Sara and Paddy from the workshop were also in the session, and fortunately they were also satisfied with how the session went. Few small ones on and notice but that makes sense.
Later in the afternoon I went to a panel session about how to get involved in the community and what you can do if you want to become an MVP someday.
Q&A: Getting involved with the Microsoft community and becoming an MVP
This was very informative with a number of MVPs doing the Q&A and Claire Smyth from the UK MVP program via teams.
In the evening we had the closing of the event with a Pub Quiz. This is always fantastic to experience and is mainly about being together, a few drinks and a lot of fun. I was asked to be 1 of the team captains and then you are always expected to have a theme for your team.
The chosen theme for our theme: A royal pain in the…. Quiz
Team Captains Unfortunately we didn’t win but it was a fantastic end to a few great days.