Some reflections on being at and helping to run a Good for Nothing Gig

There have been a couple of excellent blog posts about what we got up to at our first GFN Colchester Gig last weekend by Sally and Samra and an excellent Storify Feed put together by Mike.

I wanted to add my thoughts and reflections as part of the motley crew who organised the gig itself.

On Saturday morning we had no idea who was going to turn up. Nervous glances and awkward jokes were exchanged, and we were left wondering if anyone was really motivated enough to come along after breaking loose and partying the evening before.

Our fears were misplaced. People appeared in dribs and drabs. Coffee was made (and spilled) and hello’s exchanged. Briefs were reviewed and teams started to form.

I’ve learnt through painful experience that anything which requires a degree of facilitation can be very unpredictable. Coupled with the fact that I am considerably more shy that my gregarious overcompensation suggests I had no idea what I’d need to do during the gig.

Within 10 minutes of Gaz kicking things off and people really getting down to it I felt it was obvious we’d hit upon the perfect mixture of people. Heads were down, marker pens were squeaking furiously, and the four of us who first discussed this crazy idea back in July were left twiddling our thumbs.[1]

Running one of these gigs is hard. GFN is great because its set up not to require formal leaders, but having spent months thinking and putting this together I felt a sense of responsibility to make sure everyone was getting something out of it.

It ends up this was one of the easiest things I have ever helped to facilitate. I felt a massive sense of accomplishment in being able to have an outlet for my technical and creative juices that I just don’t normally have [2]

Inspirational is a very over-used word. But there were a few things about last weekend that I think warrant its use. found what happened last weekend

Firstly, the fact that people decided it would be better to do work for free than stay in bed at the weekend. They were prepared to offer their skills to help something that benefits others. I don’t want to sound preachy, but that’s pretty inspirational to me.

Secondly, we had a fine mix of people. People who are used to doing this kind of thing for a living to people who aren’t used to speaking publicly or working in project groups. Everyone managed to contribute something and everyone was made to feel valued.

Finally, this:

There’s often a lot of grumbling in Colchester. We can be a confused little town: often filibustering and worrying more about point scoring than Just Getting On. There are so many things that are happening in our little corner of Essex to be proud of — which show we’re a lot more than a poor Channel 4 series about one naff bar. I’m really pleased that GFN Colchester is a part of that.

Designing posters for one of the causes. ↩

By breaking GitHub, writing poor CSS and remembering how to use Layers properly. ↩