Yesterday I went along to the Bournemouth Bloggers (#bmouthbloggers) meet-up. I’ve attended blogger events in London before, but never anything locally, and so I was keen to find out a bit more about people blogging in the Bournemouth area.

On arrival, the first thing I realised was that I was probably the oldest one there! I don’t often find myself in that situation, so it was a little strange but not a problem. I was one of just two Mummy bloggers attending, sharing common ground with the lovely Laura who blogs at Max and Mummy. An interesting observation was that most in attendance were fashion and beauty bloggers, and many seemed to be media and journalism students. Of the 16 who came along, Joe was the only male. Surely there must be other male Bournemouth bloggers out there?!

Although I’m in contact with other Mummy bloggers on Twitter and have a handful of friends who also write blogs…I sometimes find that blogging can be a bit of a solitary interest. Sometimes it’s nice to get together with other likeminded people just to chat about why they blog, what motivates and inspires them, what content they find to be particularly successful, and what their long-term goals are. It’s lovely when I find common ground with a blogger, who seems to be writing for similar reasons to my own.

It was interesting to learn that the Bournemouth University students who came along are using their blog as their online portfolio, making sure they have a well-established online profile for when they come to apply for jobs. Blogs are morphing into so many different things and it’s such a different landscape to when I was applying for my first job in journalism almost 14 years ago!

All in all, it was a great event, and many thanks to Hannah at Bailey Cakes for organising and hosting it. I was stunned at the goody bags that we were sent home with. Mine was so heavy I was worried the bag was going to split! Thank you to Next, Lush, John Freida, Dove, Jimmy’s Iced Coffee (my favourite local brand), Beau xoxo hair accessories and The Bohemian Collective for all of my lovely gifts.