My inspiring weekend at BritMums Live

I am inspired. I am invigorated. I am full of ideas. I am excited.  Why? Because I attended BritMums Live this weekend, a two day conference for the blogging community. This is good not only for my blogs but for my spirit in general.

As well as some wonderful keynote speakers, the days are split into lots of sessions with a variety of talks to attend on anything from podcasting to design, accounting to using your blog for change.  The latter session I attended on Saturday morning and, having already spent half an hour in tears, listening to Benjamin Brooks Dutton talk about Life As A Widower, I then spent another 40 minutes in tears listening to four speakers passionate about helping children. 

One of the speakers of whom I am a huge admirer was Camilla Batmangelidgh. Camila is the founder of Kids Company UK, a charity passionate about supporting vulnerable children in inner-city London. She's a larger than life figure, always dressed colourfully flamboyant.  I was a bit star struck when I was fortunate to speak with her afterwards. I told of of my blog and thanked her and her charity for the wonderful work they do and recounted the times when I worked in corporate when I arranged several volunteering days working with Kids Company.  A couple of the days involved painting murals on school buildings to bring some colour to the kids lives. We also painted a quiet room in one of the schools, with flowers and trees, whilst on another outing we helped organised art and cookery workshops. The people I worked for were privileged, most went to public school, they earnt a lot of money and lived in a bubble. I wanted to take them out that bubble and show them a different side of life. Half way through our volunteering days, a representative from Kids Company would explain what the charity was about and why these children needed their help. Some of  my colleagues were very moved; I honestly don't think they realised people lived like this in London, just a few miles from their bubbles. 

I was excited to hear Camila speak of a campaign to be launched next week called 'See The Child, Change The System' to bring about a change in children's services.  More about the campaign in a future blog.

Other highlights of BritMums Live included meeting Sarah from The Puffin Diaries and Vicki from The Boys Behaviour who together founded The Adoption Social. It's so lovely to meet people in real life, people who I 'know' well from SocialMedia Land.   The Adoption Social was up for a Brilliance in Blogging Award and although they didn't win, I think they should be extremely proud for being a Finalist. They have done an amazing job spreading the word about adoption.

I read a lot of adoption and fostering themed blogs but being at BritMums reminded me there are many other excellent blogs on other themes. I'm going to make time each week to get to know some of these other blogs and hopefully, in turn, I'll gain a few new readers who didn't previously know a great deal about adoption.

Another plus point from the weekend actually happened at home. I thought Missy may play up quite a lot with me not being there Friday and Saturday. I had talked to her about the weekend quite a bit, where I was going, what in was going, what time I'd be back so she was well prepared. I asked her to give me something of hers so I could think about her whilst at the event and she picked out a lovely photo of herself. I'm not a mum who has to give daddy a long list (or indeed any list at all), he's more than capable and it turns out they had a great time together. In fact I came home on Saturday to find they'd been strawberry and raspberry picking and had made two jars of strawberry jam! 

So, I now have a long to-do list filled with things to do for my blog and I can't wait to get going.  You'll find me at my desk tomorrow with a cup of tea and strawberry jam on toast.

I'm going to #BritMums Live 2014

For those of you going to BritMums Live this week, hopefully you'll be interested in this post.  For those not going you're probably not interested in the slightest.

But the reason I'm telling you is because this is a big deal for me.  Although I'll be commuting into London both days, I'll be away for a large part of those two days.  That's two days away from Missy.  I think she'll cope ok, but who knows. Often she hates me going out because she may well be thinking "will Mummy come home?" and I'll probably know all about it on Saturday morning. Hopefully I'll return home each day to find she's missed me but also had a fabulous time with Daddy.

It' also a big deal for me as I'm feeling very nervous. I haven't been to a big event like this in a couple of years and my confidence is very low at the moment.  I'm not the person I used to be but hopefully BritMums will help to restore some of that confidence.  

So, here's some stuff about me for those attending.

Name: Sezz or Sarah

Blog:  Dear Daughter

Twitter ID: @AdoptingSezz

Height: 5ft 4ish

Hair: Shoulder length brown hair.  Well, I think it will be brown.  I'm off to the hairdressers in an hour for a colour.

Eyes: Greeny brown with brown spots

Is this your first blogging conference?   Yes.

Are you attending both days?   Sure will be.

What are you most looking forward to at BritMums Live 2014?

Lots!  Just being out the house and doing something for different for starters.  Then there's all the lovely bloggers to meet, particularly adoption bloggers Sarah and Vicki.  

What are you wearing?

Not sure.  I attended a Personal Style Day last week and turns out I'm Natural Gamine!  So I need to find something that's neat, french chic-ish, and structured (think I need to go shopping). Oh and flat shoes, I don't do heels.

What do you hope to gain from BritMums Live 2014?

Obviously I'm hoping to pick up lots of tips to improve my blogging skills.  As well as this blog, I have another one too which is kinda linked to what I used to do for a job, and one which I hope might bring in some dosh.  I'm hoping to get some inspiration about design, content and working with sponsors, plus how to get my blogs actually read!  I also hope to give my confidence a boot in the behind and I'm hoping to gain a few more blogging friends. Finally I'm hoping to gain a really cool goody bag. I love a goody bag.  

I let you all know next week how I get on!