Virtual networks on social media are all very well; however it is always great to meet up in real life – or rather TweetUp when it comes to Twitter!

TweetUps have been around as long as Twitter and Newbury has been gathering Twitter folk from West Berkshire together since 2009 and last week saw the 9^th Newbury TweetUp land at Chenz, a popular Chinese restaurant in Cheap Street, Newbury.

Who fluttered along to this most social of social media events? There were 18 people there – although virtually speaking more if you think some have more than one Twitter account! So in no particular order and every one of them worthy of following, there was:

Elly - @fairywishes , Ian - @multimedian / @Turnturtlemedia , Katherine - @Thesourceress , James –@jamesbmarshall , Leah - @leahdarby , Robin - @robindarby , Pete - @peacockpete , Sam & Melissa -@melissawright75 , Nigel - @Nigel_Morgan / @DailyPRTips / @DailyTwitTips / @MorganPR , Jules -@JulesVarnham , Debbie - @Debbiegreeneyes , Katy - @demerarabird , Adrian - @AdrianWest /@VirtualAstro, Chris - @_dibdib , Richard - @NewburySmiles / @RichardCharon Andrew - @MrApplePrint , John -@rutthenut

Veteran organiser Elly soon recognised that it would take more than 140 characters to work out the bill if everyone ordered off the menu and luckily Chenz offer an all you can eat menu (which a straw poll revealed was mostly considered a challenge) with a stonking 100 items to choose from for the modest sum of £13.95 (+VAT – but £16.74 doesn’t seem so snappy!). So with food on the way and alcohol flowing faster than the average home feed on Twitter, the 9^th Newbury TweetUp was underway.

Informality is the name of the TweetUp game and the next few hours were spent chatting with old friends and new friends and actually relatively little about Twitter itself!

That said, those who dine together certainly Tweet together afterwards and as with every TweetUp, the friendships made offline invigorate the friendships online and there were plenty of relevant tweets in the days following.

Do visit the Newbury TweetUp website to keep track on forthcoming events and shout, or indeed Tweet, if you would like to come along next time!

A big thanks to Nigel @morganpr for this post on the evenings fun. (See the original on MorganPR’s website here)

The Cheese night that took place all the way back in October left me richer by lots of cheese and wine, and a cheese board and two cheese knifes!  So I finally found a time that @Debbiegreeneyes could come to @fairywishes house to collect her errant board and knife.  This turned into coffee and then drinks and somehow before I knew it we had @demerarbird coming and then we invited @TheSourcress and @MrsMUN.  It wasn’t an official tweetup and we didn’t open it to everyone, but I think as we ended up with a mini-tweetup I’d write a little about it.

This only became 5 people later in the day so I was going around all day not thinking about it then suddenly panicked and thought aaa need to get children bath them and get them into bed before 8 opps and buy some dips.   This thought came whilst I was on the phone so quickly dumped that caller (luckily my best friend) and zipped out the house into Tesco where I did a manic shop like something out of supermarket sweep then I picked up the children.

When everyone arrived we had drinks, crisps, dips, carrots etc.  It was a lovely chilled tweet up where we sat around the room and chatted.  I’d love to tell you what we talked about but unfortunately much can not be repeated!  We did learn about the people you can meet on twitter and the enormous mistakes possible with social media  It was a very girly tweetup so men, relationships and our lives were discussed.

It was a fantastic night.  Thank you to all that came.

On Thursday 9th December we had our Christmas tweetup. I was amazed that it was a year since our first big tweetup.  For a change we decided to have it in Montysbar, it was good as we had a space reserved for us all! It was great though because we had a few people from the Cheesy tweetup @leahdarby (and partner) and @demerarabird who’d hadn’t been out without us before!  @MrsMUN even brought MrMUN , I think we were a bit too much for him, but it was lovely he came out with us all.

@jimmilen was able to make it later too and @Melissawright and Steve – another part of @chasingvegas and @amykate also it was great to have them on a tweet up.  The usual crowd of @peacockpete @Thesourceress and @fairywishes came out too.    Look at our gallery to see more pictures.

Unfortunately some well known faces were unable to make it, but we had one or two drinks to them anyway ;o)

I hope we can get more people to make our next date – please let us know of your availability so we can arrange this.  If you have other suggestions – such as the wine night or a picnic or meal or daytime let us know.

The atmosphere was a bit quiet seeing as it was a Thursday in December we thought it would be more busy!  Still there was plenty of room for us all.  As ever the conversation covered many topics ranging from Christmas, drinking to politics and lifestyles.  We managed to have lots of drinks and laughter.

It was a good Christmas Tweetup – next year I think we need to do something even more fantastic – any ideas what?

Details are on the Next Tweetup page. Hope to see all the regulars and more new faces there. Please do sign up on the twitvite link, it helps us gauge numbers, there is a “maybe” option for those of you who are unsure you can make it.

The keen eyed visitors to Newbury Tweetup Website will have notice that the header image was changed in celebration of Bonfire / Fireworks night. We hope you all had a great time.

Twitterati will be pleased to know that halloweens spooky forces have been successfully banished from the website header and that the woman in the background with the blood curdling scream was not harmed in production.

Thanks to Elly (the lovely @fairywishes) for hosting a wonderful cheese and wine tweetup for the twitterati of Newbury. It was very brave of her to invite the tweeting masses to her home, even those we’d never met before!

Lots of new faces came along in the form of @Debbiegreeneyes @demerybird @leahdarby @MikeNotaro and @rutthenut . It was great to finally put faces to avatars!

… there were lots of familiar faces too; @fairywishes @GrahameCoach @multimedian and @TheSourceress.

Highlights of the evening included all of Elly’s baking – There was so much food! @rutthenut brought with him a very intriguing Sweedish Brown Cheese – fantastic to experience a cheese only previously read about in tweets.

Sorry that I didn’t write anything about this tweetup when it happened.

First of all, unfortunately due to a lack of interest and a difficulty in knowing who was going to attend we rescheduled from the 15th June to the 9th July.  When the 9th July came around, even though a few people had to drop out we still went with it.

This tweetup was a small intimate affair with @TheSourceress @fairywishes @peacockpete making it again and @originalsteve & @MrsMUN joining us for the first time.  We meet at our usual – Montys in Newbury.  We had a great time meeting @originalsteve all the way from London & finding out that @fairywishes sister @RozHase ‘s friend worked with him and they both work as strategic planners a strange role.  The world’s a small place.

It was lovely meeting @MrsMUN and although @thesourceress had to go home early we managed to drag @MrsMUN with us (@originalsteve, @peacockpete @fairywishes) to the HogsHead for further drinking. I am posting these photos of @originalsteve even though they are definitely end of evening shoots.

It was lovely to meet everyone and looking forward to catching up again, although we may not let @MrsMUN go this time without going on to a club or at least some dancing.

I haven’t managed to write much on our Tweetup on Friday 9th April I’ve been really busy. But we meet in Monty’s Bar and fun & laughter was had by all as well as serious conversations.   Montys Bar put aside a table for us to make sure that we all had somewhere to sit.  @simonmiddlemiss & @LinzMiddlemiss sat at the table, ignoring the reserved sign – but luckily it was for us anyway!

Thanks to @simonmiddlemiss @LinzMiddlemiss @peacockpete @emmersimms @GrahameCoach @jimmillen @multimedian @fairywishes for coming along and making the evening great.

Next time we need to make sure more people come along and we need more photos.  I promise to write up the next tweetup in more detail.

We held the second tweetup on the 12th February at Document House, in Newbury.

@peacockpete was the first to arrive and greeted @fairywishes & @TheSourceress with warm kisses – was a bit unsure if he should do the same to @multimedian (it was decided that the likelyhood of spilt drink would be too great). @TheSourceress was wearing her ‘twitter’ T-shirt & I was wearing my little @fairywishes broach – so no real help in identifying myself to new people.

It had been tweeted that we should meet upstairs but @GrahamCoach @Fibroaction & @simonmiddlemiss did not notice this and we had to go down & collect them!

A great turn out with seven out of the eight who came last time coming again. Unfortunately @Nigel_Morgan couldn’t make it. Luckily @emmasimms @JWWLaw & @jimmillen joined us to make our numbers up. We hoping that the numbers keep increasing with lots more people being interested in joining. Keep an eye out for when the next tweetup is. We welcome anyone who is based in the local area or who is visiting. We are a welcoming group, even if we are all a little mad – well I’m mainly talking from my own experience. I’m definitely mad, but welcoming!

The topics of conversation ranged from how to take a good picture; port drinking; good wines; commuting; computing; divorce and how to carry eggs in handbags! Many of these conversations were happening at the same time. Lots of wine and drink was had making this a relaxed, fun and enjoyable beginning to the evening. Then Document House started their DJing set which soon had us shouting at each other and a decision was made to move on.

We then went onto ‘Queens’ where some of the group had tea & coffee but most continued drinks and a little chat. I have to say I then went home and can not write what happened next at the Tweetup- next time I vow I will not go home so early – but I have heard that @peacocpete, @emmasimms & @GrahamCoach went onto Montys until the small hours drinking yet more wine and I believe dancing was had. When questioned the trio can not give me a very complete picture of what occurred, but insist they were well behaved and had a great time! I think there was a lot of love shared.

Please look at the picture gallery for some photos that were taken on the night. Next time I want more cameras and more silly photos. We could have had loads of @peacockpete as he spend some time practising how to have his picture taken but I think we have enough.

We are also going to add a caption contest I think.

Some suggestions for future events are a wine and cheese night and a themed event where we all have to wear something that relates to our twitter name – not sure what the people whose handle is just their name could wear. Any more suggestions please let me know.