One Saturday morning in July I received an
email informing me I was no longer required in my Pharmacy job.* I was crushed. You see, I remember the minutiae of peoples' lives, I care about helping people, and this was one of those rare communities where it is not just about how quickly you can dispense a script (although there was that); people would come in for advice on their child's rash or baby formula. I love that stuff. I didn't care about the loss of the job. I was wounded by the loss of that community.
As I drove to (my other) work it occurred to me that there was a bunch of opportunities for connection around me and I just had to grab hold of one. I had joined a couple of Facebook blogger groups two months earlier and had seen a Sydney meetup occur but nothing in Melbourne. So I created an event and started telling people about it. I ran an online survey to see what people wanted because I had no idea what kind of lives other bloggers lead, and armed with the results I found a venue with the location/pricepoint/timing people wanted and made it happen.
A couple of people had left by this point but you get the idea. Photo by
Millicent Nankivell
It was glorious.
