Cake Time for RookieOven

Last Friday we held a one year birthday party for RookieOven. Kev O’Neil of 29 Studios and Moviecom.tv was kind enough to offer the use of his amazing city centre studio for us to celebrate.

It was organised at quite short notice with my time of late being taken up by the organising of Startup Weekend Glasgow but despite only putting the word out on Wednesday we had a fantastic turn out and as has always been the case with RookieOven, fantastic diversity. Developers, designers, journalists and more with a mix of students and experience. It really encapsulated what RookieOven is all about – bringing the whole startup community together.

The party also served as a reflection point on Startup Weekend Glasgow, a bunch of the mentors were there and a collection of participants came along too. A week isn’t really enough time for it all to settle but it was enough to take stock on some of the successes and failures of the weekend, especially in regards to organisation and facilitation, and how things can improve going forward with future Startup Weekends in Scotland.

So why have the party in June when the first RookieOven post was in mid May? Well the first RookieOven meetup was on the 6th of June last year and since then it’s been so beneficial to me personally. I’ve met a ton of cool people who are working on some awesome products and it has also given me support and encouragement at times when things aren’t going particularly well. I hope I’m not alone in this and others have had the same positive experience with the RookieOven meetups.

I hope RookieOven will be around to see its second birthday and I hope you will be around to come to future meetups and events. I think RookieOven is a valuable contribution to the Scottish startup scene but can you think of any ways we can make it even better?

P.S. There will be no meetup tomorrow due to the party on Friday and the fact it’s the bank holiday but see you all on the 2nd of July