Toronto Meet Up Journals

@takatsu - Meet Up #2 - October 26th, 2014

In attendance:

@Takatsu @TaylorGGibbs @trollNickU @NickUskoski @theawesomewasabi  @Jing_Jing @AlexM94 @Joflower @MaajaWentz @therealshazza @vesalisa @MathiasDos @Kevin @brewedinbeauty @Kaisareur @theOrangutan @unbrokenworld @Sepherene

I was really quite happy the turn out was rather immense and we had about 18 people - many of whom were new faces. Among them, several came as readers - formerly "silent" readers - as well as a particularly young member. A few, I already knew personally, whom I converted to Wattpad, and a few from the last meet up! This brings together a whole variety of personalities and ideas in convergence. It was great to see the courage and the leap of faith everyone must have taken in order to come out, often from far off places via long car rides or commutes all the way downtown to the Wattpad HQ and hand their fate to me as the organizer so to speak, as well as the smiles on everyone's faces as we connected with people of the same wavelengths and common interests - to help people find community is one of my greatest passions.

Meet Up Run Down and Description:

It was free-flowing, action-packed, and community-building. The programming of the event really wasn't planned or set in stone, it was meant to be improv'd and I think it went well enough. I didn't have too much of a clue what I was doing. Originally I was hoping for something real informal and mingle but I thought the beanbags and couches would be more relaxing. So at about 5PM, we gathered around in a circle there but then I realized it looked more like a meeting! We introduced ourselves, had snacks and tagged everyone's usernames in a Wattpad message blast as per tradition, and had people join the growing group as time went on - one of which the famous TheOrangutan and super fun guy from the UK! Despite the fact that it was slightly a formal introduction, improv is improv, and it would only make sense to break this formality by a large group picture at the Wattpad Tree (of published Wattpad books and Wattpad titles on leaves) in the kitchen area (See image media or Photo Gallery on our profile).

Afterwards, along with a premise that we would be thinking of spooky Halloween scenarios to write a short story about we embarked on an office tour as per tradition. For many it was the first time there, and for people like me, it felt like a second home. Nick should be a professional tour guide. At times, I was piping up reminding about things because I must have been pretending I was staff too. Of course we saw the decrepit old-school elevator and the ping pong room, the Wattpad graffiti and the shower, etc. With all matters settled, armed with markers, we signed/doodled the office Meet Up wall, and played Cards Against Humanity + Wattpad edition, to the disgust and laughter of many. Here are some tame ones I remember: "If you join our Beta program, you'll get priority access to spectacular abs." "Office productivity has been negatively impacted by idiots playing a card game." "We commissioned one of our most famous Fanfiction writers to compose a story about George W. Bush"

We finished up around 6:50 and headed off to a cozy dinner and conversations at a pub/grill nearby. The place was really massive and had pool tables, bars, and many empty tables of vintage wood textures. The lighting and atmosphere was incredible. As if we had entered a detective film or a secret tavern for club members. With a few beers and I had a Shepherd's lamb pie, we also tackled deep philosophical conversations about literature, politics, history, societyl, life, the world and so on.... It felt like many of us hadn't had a great intellectual conversation with people on the same frequencies for a long time and it was wonderful to see everyone connect. It made me feel blessed that I could've been a part of forming this community. Our numbers eventually dwindled at around 9 and we called it a night - except for two who went for another (few) rounds of drinks.

Needless to say, it was an event of a grand scale of fun, humour and energy, lots of bouncing around and movement and meaningful exchanges. Thanks to everyone for coming out and making this happen.

After the meetup I felt inspired to:

I think it is a given that everyone was inspired to, rather, has homework in writing a Halloween short piece for our @TorontoMeetUp account based on a scenario we imagined happening at our Meet Up. Other than that, I feel inspired to find a way to encourage really personal friendships amongst local Wattpadders while still doing bigger community-building events - we will need different kinds of events as we go on for the future. I believe we may need to form small quick pop up events like a coffee shop meet and retain large Wattpad HQ events for occasions.

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Please see the Photo Gallery story on our profile for more pictures from the night.