“But, Sara!” You might be saying right about now, “Wasn’t #bvilletweets last week? Get with it, girl!” To which I respond, yes, it was a week ago today to be precise. But photos from the event weren’t available a week ago and goodness knows these posts just aren’t the same without the addition of some incredible shots from Winding Violets, so I opted to wait.

I can also imagine that some of you might be wondering why I bother posting about every local tweet-up that happens here in Quinte. After all, it is what it is – A social gathering of (awesome) local tweeters that gives said tweeters the opportunity to finally put people to avatars and continue to build up those virtual relationships IRL, if you will. But that having been said, each one is different in its own way and, especially considering that this place tends to rock the small town mentality, it’s always cool to highlight the awesome things that are being accomplished here.

Hosted at Earl and Angelo’s Steakhouse and organized by the team at Engine Communications (With thanks, as always!) #bvilltweets (The hashtag for the event back channel) was something of an initiation for many. A few months back, some local personalities joined the 140 Club, so what better way to introduce them the wonderful world of Twitter than by throwing a party?

Among the Belleville notables in attendance were Mayor Neil Ellis (@MayorNeilEllis), Councillor Tom Lafferty (@CouncillorTom) and Belleville Intelligencer managing editor, Bill Glisky (@ BillGlisky). In fact, I know that more councillors and well-known faces came out, but the place was so packed that yours truly wasn’t able to get around to see everyone.

No, I wasn’t being anti-social. Without a doubt, this tweet-up was the best attended yet, with the upstairs rooms of E&A’s packed with tweeters and surrounded by innocent diners simply unable to understand what was happening around them. It’s hard to say exactly, but if everyone who said they were going to show up on the Facebook invite did, we were sitting at somewhere around 50 people in attendance. I’d believe it too.

Yup, almost 50 tweeters at a Belleville tweet-up.

We had the usual suspects along with an incredible assortment of fresh faces from all kinds of different local industries (And some not so local – @CallumPinkney came all the way from Durham to attend!)

I was so, so, so impressed. It’s really amazing to see the way these events have taken off and how they continue to bring our community together in such a fun and exciting way. And the best part is that each one continues to grow and evolve, playing off of the creative energy of everyone involved. So will you be at the next Quinte tweet-up? It’s obviously the place to be!

Mayor Neil Ellis was a hit at the tweet up!