A self organised unconference for anyone with an interest in services in islands, wherever they may be (including the big one with Cardiff, Edinburgh, and London on it); and for anyone with connections to islands, however tenuous. Also (in May 2012 and May 2015), an opportunity for visitors to Orkney to see puffins!

IslandGovCamp #IsleGC15 : Saturday and Sunday 30-31 May 2015
Kirkwall Grammar School, Orkney (and online)

(There will also be an island visit, and/or bus tour in Orkney on Friday 29 May 2015, for govcampers travelling to Orkney who can arrive a day or 2 early.)

Monday 28 May 2012

#IslandGovCamp in transition from event to state of mind ...

[UPDATED: 14:40 Tue 29 May 2012: URLs for video recordings corrected]

Thanks to everyone who participated in #IsleGC12 , either remotely over the internet or here in Kirkwall. As the weekend's events turn from hectic reality to slightly gentler memories, I hope we can keep up the momentum and make sure that we all keep collaborating with any willing partners in the use of readily available technologies (including social media) to sustain and develop services (public, private and third sector) in our various island contexts.

We were very fortunate to have contributions from Sue Wells of Christchurch, New Zealand (over the internet), and from Jan Walburg of Bureau Walburg, based in Friesland in The Netherlands.  Sue's reflections on the experience so far of the hugely destructive earthquakes recently to have utterly transformed the city of Christchurch, and Jan's smartC4RE ideas (which we hope will result in developments and improvements in the use of technology for social care and health), added another dimension to the event. It was also great to have Duncan McKenzie of Northern Constabulary as a direct link to the #BlueLightCamp community, with #northernBLCamp , at Kirkwall Police Station (and on the internet) on Saturday morning. It is to be hoped that these contacts (among many others) will produce lasting results over the coming months and years.

Reflections on various aspects of the event will appear over the coming days and weeks, but in the meantime, there are some sources of video recordings of the event which may be of interest (anything with tags or hashtags of #IslandGovCamp , #IsleGC12, #smartcare and/or #northernBLCamp - as well as #twicket and #X1GuidedTourOfOrkney):

The list of specific thanks is very long, so let's adopt our habitual bulleted list, and hope that we don't miss anyone out.

Thanks go to those who worked hard to make the weekend as useful as it was, and to make sure there were as few avoidable issues for inperson and remote attendees as possible on the day:
  • whoever brought the excellent hot, sunny weather which lasted the entire weekend (although it is quite a bit cooler today, as the wind has gone back round to a mostly northerly direction)
  • Orkney College UHI - including Christine Scott (Business Manager, for providing effortless - on our part - access to the College's huge range of facilities), Anne Hill and Susan Mowat (and their colleagues and students, for the excellent lunches on Saturday and Sundain), and Mike Berg and Keith Chalmers (ICT technicians, for assistance with video conferencing and wifi access)
  • John Fox - for being the calm, reasonable, focussed one throughout the weekend, and for his indefatigable positivity and invaluable (although unpaid, sadly for him!) communications efforts from the very first day we decided to go ahead with the idea of #IslandGovCamp (about 10 weeks ago), including operating the @IslandGovCamp twitter account for the last few days
  • Kate Deans - for 24-hour availability, and for hours and hours of unpaid events management and organisational assistance (including operating the islandgovcamp@gmail.com account, and the @IslandGovCamp twitter account), during her time in Kirkwall after working in the EU Parliamentarium (Parliament Visitor Centre), and before taking up a post as language assistant in Germany
  • Alex Stobart, of Mydex CIC (a member of the Digital Participation Action Group established in Edinburgh in November 2011) - for invaluable advice, assistance and encouragement since the idea for #IslandGovCamp began to take shape in the last part of 2011
  • Sean Lewis, of Magnetic North Films - for dogged and persistent work in broadcasting #IsleGC12 discussions on the internet, including building his broadcast set up bit-by-bit, component-by-component (while getting and keeping the show on the road, and making continuous efforts to improve the quality of the broadcasts as we went through the weekend despite encountering every sort of technical hitch imaginable (and a few unimaginable ones!)
  • the University of the Highlands and Islands - including Jem Taylor and Bob Brandie (both of the Learning Information Services department), for providing access to the University's video-conferencing and webcasting infrastructure, and for providing guest wifi for inperson participants
  • Fran Flett Hollinrake, of Dragon History - for designing and conducting #X1GuidedTourOfOrkney , for lots of moral support and #soothchapelchat, and for copious amounts of good self-organised sense
  • Judith Glue, David, Paula and the Real Food Kitchen team, for a great UnDinner on Saturday night
  • Bruce Mainland, for entertaining us with some songs on Saturday night
  • Orkney Cricket Club - including Andy Hollinrake, who made the #twicket #oftheNorth a reality on Sunday afternoon, and Liam McArthur for some ferocious bowling and for receiving a briefing on the whole weekend on the boundary
  • James Coltham, Martin Howitt, Leah Lockhart, Mark Braggins, Michael McLean, Shirley Ayres , and others based on the big island with Cardiff, Edinburgh and London on it, for being extra specially willing participants
  • Lesley Thomson - for being equally extra-specially willing in her participation, and for starting off the ScotGovCamp event in 2010. (The #IslandGovCamp "joke" was cracked at ScotGovCamp 2011 in Aberdeen, from which the Orkney event grew.)  
  • Blue Light Camp - including Sasha Taylor and others, from which (along with ScotGovCamp) many ideas and principles were "borrowed" 
  • John Popham of Huddersfield, for his inspiring attitude to "just doing" webcasting
  • Mary McKenna of Learning Pool - for being enthusiastic about the concept of #IslandGovCamp, and about puffins
  • James Macdonald of Cisco - for help with using Cisco webex for planning sessions, and for experimenting with different ways of providing remote access to the event
  • Tom and Sam - for putting up with me being embarassing, and for assisting with the raffle
  • Jenny Devlin - for everything
  • Orkney Islands Council - including Dawn Sherwood, Robert Horrobin and Vince Buchan (of  IT and Support Services), for tolerating and assisting Sweyn Hunter's  obsession over the past weeks and months with making #IslandGovCamp happen, and Marine Services for sponsorship
  • Orkney ICT Forum committee members - including Steven Heddle for chairing everything, and Malcolm Marwick for practical assistance throughout the weekend
  • Scottish Government Digital Division - for funding the event, and to Alyson Mitchell for assistance with that process
  • UKGovCamp - for inspiration, encouragement and sponsorship 
  • Molly and Pepper - for mascot services in Orkney and Christchurch
  • everyone else who contributed or assisted in any way

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