The Grent Blend

I went along to The Great Blend last night, hosted by Russell Brown. There were around 200 people at the Boatshed. As with every day for the last week it has been a scorcher so the Boatshed was a great venue. There were dozens of people jumping off a nearby diving board in their togs into the lagoon. I wish I had my camera with me.

Didn’t think I would know many people there but turned out I did. Finally met Martha (and hubbie) from Wanda Harland which was nice as I’ve been reading her blog for years.

Funniest occassion was when I came across two people chatting whom I knew through different ways. One was a journalist and the other a commenter on this blog. I asked them how they knew each other and was told they’re engaged 🙂 Definitely a small town.

The absolute highlight was a presentation from the Back of the Y team. I had never actually seen their work and was in hysterics as they showed clips of it. The jumping over an angry monkey set one fire stunt is priceless. It’s superb Kiwi humour and I’m going to get their DVDs.

We also got a sneak preview of their movie – The Devil Dared Me To. Again it looks great and when it shows in NZ, it should be a must see.

After they presented we had a break and then a panel discussion on digital democracy. The panelists were all good but overall I found it a wee bit disjointed and not as useful as it could have been. Might have worked better with a specific challenge such as “How can NZ become the leading digital democracy country by 2015?” Was still a worthwhile session though.

So big thanks to Russell for making it happen, and to the sponsors.