London Geek Meet 3: Cold War Modern
Update: This event has been cancelled.
Again another London Geek Meet! And again something a bit different. This time we’ll be going to the Victoria & Albert Museum for their special Cold War Modern exhibition. Here’s the description about the exhibition from their site:
This period from the end of the Second World War to the mid 1970s was a period of great political tension and exceptional creativity which touched all aspects of life, from everyday products to the highest arenas of human achievement in science and culture. Art and design were not peripheral symptoms of politics during the Cold War: they played a central role in representing and sometimes challenging the dominant political and social ideas of the age.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about this exhibition, including the fun and mysterious promotion of it through The 7th Syndikate. And thanks to the guys at 1000heads we’ve gotten 10 free tickets to share with you all!
To make it fair though, we won’t be giving these tickets away. Our idea is this: depending on the amount of people who sign up, the cost of the extra tickets that have to be bought, will be split over all people who attend. So if 15 people sign up, everybody pays £3 (£9*5/15). If you are interested in coming, email mseckington@gmail.com. This is absolutely necessary, because we’ll probably have to book tickets for a specific time slot.
Because not everyone has been to the Victoria & Albert Museum before, we thought it would be a great opportunity to also see the rest of the museum. We’ll meetup at 11:00 before the entrance in Cromwell Road. If you’re only interested in the Cold War Modern exhibition, we’ll have a second meet-up point at 14:00 inside the musuem in the hall before the exhibition.
When: Sunday, December 7th December 14th
Time: 11:00 for main museum, 14:00 for Cold War exhibition only
Where: Victoria & Albert Museum
Nearest Tube: South Kensington
Activity: Museum exhibition
Cost: Food and coffee on buy your own basis, tickets depending on how many people sign up (won’t be more than £7 per person though)
Sign up by sending an email to mseckington@gmail.com.
Update: We’ve had to reschedule to a week later to December the 14th.
Update: This event has been cancelled.
London Geek Meet 2: Space Invader Hunting
It’s time for another London Geek Meet! With this one I wanted to try something a bit different, so we’ll be going geocache hunting. Geocaching is a treasure-hunting puzzle-solving type of game, where people hide and look for secret containers (called geocaches) with the help of GPS. Some caches are straightforward: the clue is a GPS location, you go to that location and the cache is hidden somewhere there. Others can be a bit more elaborate, where you first have to solve certain puzzles and riddles before you can find the cache.
We’ll be doing a special geocache quest revolving around the Space Invader Invasion. Observant Londoners may have noticed these little creatures lurking from side streets and street corners. They are all part of the ‘Invasion’, a street art project from an artist known only by the name Invader. So far 35 cities have already been invaded, including London, New York, Amsterdam and Paris. Here’s a photo of one of the Space Invaders in Paris:
With this Geocache hunt we’ll be searching for 12 of these Space Invaders hidden around central London. Each Space Invader will lead to a clue needed to solve the location of the final hidden cache. The hunt is supposed to take about 3 to 3.5 hours, but we’ll also take a break to have some coffee or beer somewhere (and maybe dinner afterwards).
When: Sunday, September 21st, 13:00
Where: Covent Garden Tube Station
Activity: Geocache Hunting/Sightseeing/Photography
Cost: Food and coffee on buy your own basis
We’ll meet up in front of Covent Garden Tube Station (also the location for our first Space Invader). Make sure you’re there before 13:15, cause that’s when we’ll start with out quest (so no running late!). Please email me if you’re interested in coming along. Let’s go a hunting…
Big Geek Day Out: Alton Towers
During the first Geek Meet we got to think about organizing big day out to places outside of London. So, Neil Crosby came up with the idea of a Big Geek Day Out. The first one will be on August 2nd, which is quite far away, but at least you can now mark it down in your agenda already. Here is the plan for now:
Summer’s coming up, you say? And you like Theme Parks? Come and meet us at Alton Towers on the 2nd August then.
More details about possible train deals you can use to get there once the train companies get their acts together and publish this year’s deals. Tickets normally cost £25 for an adult off t’web (plus obviously your cost to get there), but I’m sure that the normal 2 for 1 deals and the like will appear as soon as summer comes along.
This fun day out is open to all (not just geeks). Come one, come all – come to Alton Towers!
When: Saturday, 2nd of August
Where: Alton Towers
Cost: TBA
Upcoming: 495352
Looking Back at Geek Meet #1
So, Sunday we had the first Geek Meet and it was quite a success for an unorganized, social meetup of geeks. We started out at the Starbucks behind County Hall and after 2 hours of lounging and chatting about Net Neutrality, Flickr Video, and other geek stuff, we headed out for a walk past the Thames.
We had quite a bit of luck with the weather and eventually ended up at a bar near Borough Market where we had some food. We will have another Geek Meet soon, maybe on a Saturday, maybe with a theme. Let us know if you have any ideas.
Below are some of the photos we took.
London Geek Meet 1
I’ve had a good response to the idea of a London Geek Meet event, so I’m going ahead and announcing the first one for this weekend. The idea is to meet-up in a cafe, hang around there for an hour or so and then go somewhere with the group.
For this first one, we’ll meet-up at the Starbucks near County Hall behind the London Eye for an hour to discuss and determine where we’ll exactly go. We’ve got a couple of options: walking along the Thames in the direction of the London Bridge or walking towards Buckingham Palace. In the case of very bad weather, we’ll stay in the cafe or go to London Aquarium (if people are interested in this though, I’d rather book it in advance and try to get bloggers discount).
When: Sunday, April 20th, 11:00
Where: Starbucks County Hall (Google Maps)
Nearest Underground: Westminster, Waterloo, Lambeth North
Activity: Sightseeing
Cost: Food and coffee on buy your own basis
Upcoming: 473635
Please use the upcoming link to indicate your interest in attending. If you have trouble finding the place or are running late, you can phone me (07521 294 391) or Twitter me directly (mseckington).