Category: Reading

Reading Girl Geek Dinners event, 30th October 2012, hosted by Symantec

 



We’re thrilled to announce our next Reading Girl Geek Dinners event which is sponsored by Symantec and will be held at Symantec’s offices in Green Park, Reading.

The event will open at 6.30pm with registration for a 7pm start.

 

Full Details:

      • Date & Time: Tuesday, 30th October, 2012 @ 6:30pm for a 7pm start
      • End Time: 10:00pm
      • Venue: Symantec, 350 Brook Drive, Green Park, Reading, Berkshire, RG2 6UH.
      • Hosted by: Girl Geek Dinners and Symantec
      • Food & Drink: Buffet
      • Subject for the evening: Special Guests and talk subjects to be announced
      • Evenings Agenda: 
        • Registration 6:30pm
        • Start 7pm – Talk/s
        • 8:00pm – buffet and networking
        • 9:00pm – 10:00pm – close

 

Speakers

      • Maggie Philbin – Symantec have worked with Maggie over the last 6 months around Teen Tech, and Maggie will join us to talk about Teen Tech and attracting young girls into STEM roles. This also supports a lot of the SWAN and charity work that Symantec and the Girl Geek Dinners movement in the UK carries out.
      • Kate Russell –  A reporter and journalist, Kate Russell started writing about technology, gaming and the Internet in 1995 and now appears weekly on the BBC’s flagship technology programme Click, as well as being a regular on the sofa at ITV’s Daybreak. She writes technology columns for National Geographic Traveller magazine and Web User magazine as well as curating a daily blog at MyWebDaily.com. Her first book Working the Cloud: a collection of tips, tricks and online resources for small businesses and entrepreneurs, will be published early next year.
Kate also recently presented at London Girl Geek Dinners and therefore we are delighted that she is available to continue sharing her knowledge and experiences with another chapter of Girl Geek Dinners.
      • Sian John –  Snr Security Advisor, Symantec – Sian will give an overview of the threat landscape
      • Carolyn Herzog – Snr Legal Counsel and chair of SWAN will host the session as a senior female Symantec leader

 

Capacity: 30 people

 

Attendees: As ever, boy geeks are welcome to attend if invited by a girl geek although on this occasion we do stress that there are few and limited spaces so more boy geeks = less girl geeks.

 

If you’d like to attend on 30th October, please sign up via the ‘Click and Register’  button, and we’ll see you at the event!

NOTE: If you are an internal employee of Symantec, please contact your SWAN representatives for registration details. This registration is for non internal Symantec attendees only.
Your SWAN contacts are:
Claire Scull – Claire_Scull@symantec.com
Hayley Mowat – Hayley_Mowat@symantec.com
All Non Internal Symantec attendees, please register via the button below…

Eventbrite - Reading Girl Geek Dinners Event, October 30th 2012, hosted by Symantec

Reading Girl Geek Dinners – Mentoring Event


Reading Girl Geek Dinners will be holding our next event on 18th July, 2012 on Copa Bar, Reading. The event will commence at 7:00pm and and our guest speaker will be discussing Jacqui Hogan of MentorSET who will be discussing Mentoring.


Our Sponsors

Reading Girl Geek Dinners welcomes Apple Print Limited as our sponsor for this event.

Apple Print Limited logo

 

Beavering away in their central Newbury location, they love nothing more than to turn your ideas and artwork into a creative reality. As well as offering a full printing service including lithographic, digital and large format, they also have a fantastic creative studio on-site.
Whether you have an exciting graphic design or art-working project you’d like help with or you want to launch a brand spanking new website, then our studio is THE creative hub to contact to discuss your requirements.

You can contact Apple Print Limited on 01635 521 654 or info@appleprint.co.uk for all of your printing needs.

Thanks to Apple Print Limited, our event will be free.


Mentoring

MentorSET is a successful mentoring scheme to help women working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). We provide independent mentors who understand the challenges faced and who can provide support and advice.

MentorSET aims to increase the number of women who can maintain their STEM careers, and realise their full potential.

Mentoring is a powerful personal development and empowerment tool. It is an effective way of helping people to progress in their careers and is becoming increasing popular as its potential is realised. It is a partnership between two people (mentor and mentee) normally working in a similar field or sharing similar experiences. It is a helpful relationship based upon mutual trust and respect.


A mentor is a guide who can help the mentee to find the right direction and who can help them to develop solutions to career issues. Mentors rely upon having had similar experiences to gain an empathy with the mentee and an understanding of their issues. Mentoring provides the mentee with an opportunity to think about career options and progress.


A mentor should help the mentee to believe in herself and boost her confidence. A mentor should ask questions and challenge, while providing guidance and encouragement. Mentoring allows the mentee to explore new ideas in confidence. It is a chance to look more closely at yourself, your issues, opportunities and what you want in life. Mentoring is about becoming more self aware, taking responsibility for your life and directing your life in the direction you decide, rather than leaving it to chance.


About our guest speaker: 

The speaker is Jacqui Hogan, who has managed the MentorSET scheme since March last year. Originally studying Architecture and working as a building surveyor she has, for the last 30 or so years, worked in a variety of technical and managerial roles in the IT industry. Jacqui has experience with a wide variety of sectors including local government, oil rig design, electronics, civil engineering, pharmaceuticals, utilities, telecoms and entrepreneurs. She is an experienced mentor and speaker, and has worked as an independent consultant for the past 9 years.


She is qualified in both IT (MBCS, CITP) and Business Management (MBA, FCMI), and is a self-confessed Girl Geek.


Within the Girl Geek movement, we are also working to promote mentoring and are now undertaking the steps to offer mentoring to our community. Please visit us at http://mentor.girlgeekdinners.com/ to find out more.

Full Event Details:

  • Date & Time: Wednesday,18th July 2012, 6:30pm arrive for a 7pm start
  • End Time: Late
  • Venue: Copa, Reading
  • Hosted by: Reading Girl Geek Dinners
  • Food & Drink: Buffet (vegetarians catered for); buy your own drinks
  • Subject for the evening: Mentoring with our special guest speaker Jacqui Hogan of MentorSET.
  • Format: Reception, Mentoring Discussion, Buffet.
  • Capacity: 50 people
  • Attendees: As ever, Boy Geeks are welcome to attend if invited by a Girl Geek.
  • Cost: Free
  • Registration for this event will close on11th July.

If you’d like to attend on 18th July, please sign up via the Register button, and we’ll see you at the event!

 

Eventbrite - Reading Girl Geek Dinners Mentoring Event

Reading Girl Geek Dinners Re-launch event – Wed 30th May, 7pm at Copa, Reading


REGISTRATION NOW CLOSED!

Girl Geek Dinners are hosting a re-launch event on Wednesday 30th May at Copa,  76-78A Kings Road, R Reading eading, RG1 3BJ

The event will commence at 6.30pm with some networking and games, a raffle followed by a buffet. We will have some more time for networking after the meal.

The theme of the evening will be “I’m a Girl Geek because…..”. Come and share ideas, get inspiration and meet like-minded people. Remembering that you don’t have to work directly in IT to be a Geek. You just need to have a passion for it so you can share your knowledge and ideas or learn from others at the event. Most of all, this is a social occasion where we can enjoy ourselves.   Full Details:

  • Date & Time: Wednesday, 30th May 2012, 6:30pm for a 7pm start
  • End Time: Late
  • Venue: Copa, Reading
  • Hosted by: Reading Girl Geek Dinners
  • Food & Drink: Buffet (vegetarians catered for); buy your own drinks
  • Subject for the evening: I’m a Girl Geek because…..
  • Format: Reception, Dinner, Conversation, Networking Games, Raffle, Prizes.
  • Capacity: 50 people
  • Attendees: As ever, Boy Geeks are welcome to attend if invited by a Girl Geek.  
  • Cost: As we have been unable to locate a sponsor for this event, we do need to request £9 on entry to cover the cost of the catering for the event which we will collect on the night.
  • Registration for this event will close on 25th May.

If you’d like to attend on 30th May, please sign up via the Register button, and we’ll see you at the event!

 

Eventbrite - Reading Girl Geek Dinners Re-launch Event

We have moved!

Hi Everyone,

We’ve moved our site from here to http://reading.girlgeekdinners.com and are in search of a new leader. If you’re interested in getting Reading Girl Geek Dinners back up and running for 2012 please contact sarah at girlgeekdinners dot com.

Fingers crossed we’ll be back with some new events for 2012 very soon!

GGD 5th Anniversary Dinner

This Thursday (23rd September), we held our Reading Girl Geek Dinner event, which was a very special one: Girl Geek Dinners was turning five!

And to celebrate it, we had GGD’s founder, Sarah Blow, with a very interesting talk about “How It All Began”. It was news for some, and very nice for all of us to remember or find out how GGD started 5 years ago.

The event was held at Glo, very fitting venue, abundant and nice food and with lots of good conversation. It was great to see new and familiar faces: thanks to those of you who came along, despite the terrible showers that happened precisely when we were supposed to start.

Thank you as well to our kind sponsors, DediPower, who supported us on this very special occasion – and also provided some goodie bags for the attendees.

We will soon be planning our next event, which will be in late November. Let us know if you are interested in speaking or sponsoring and, in any case, we hope to see you at the next Reading GGD!

5th Anniversary Dinner – 23 September


[tweetmeme source=readinggd] We’re thrilled to announce our September  2010 Reading Girl Geek Dinner, which is also Girl Geek Dinner’s 5th Anniversary, at Glo in central Reading. This event is kindly sponsored by DediPower.

You can come any time from 6.30pm with some networking; dinner will follow and we will have some more time for networking after the meal.

Being the 5th Anniversary, we are delighted to have a great speaker: none other but the founder of Girl Geek Dinners, Sarah Blow.

The topic is “Where It All Began”.

The event will commence at 6.30pm; dim sum dinner will follow from 7pm and we will have some time for networking during and after the meal.

As usual, come prepared to share ideas, be inspired and meet like-minded people. In a nutshell: join us to have a great evening.

Thanks to DediPower for supporting this event.


Full Details:

  • Date & Time: Thursday, 23rd September, 6:30pm for a 7pm start
  • End Time: Late
  • Venue: Glo, Reading
  • Hosted by: Girl Geek Dinners
  • Food & Drink: Dim sum, buy your own drinks
  • Subject for the evening: Where It All Began
  • Format: Reception, Dinner, Conversation
  • Capacity: 40 people
  • Attendees: As ever, boy geeks are welcome to attend if invited by a girl geek although on this occasion we do stress that there are few and limited spaces so more boy geeks = less girl geeks.

If you’d like to attend on 23rd September, please sign up via the Register Now button below, and we’ll see you at the event!

23 September Reading GGD: 5th Anniversary

We hope you are enjoying the summer – despite the occasional rain!

Some of you know already, but Girl Geek Dinners is turning five this year! At Reading Girl Geek Dinners we want to have our Anniversary dinner, and this is set for Thursday, 23rd September.

Eventbrite site for registration will be up very soon.

Sponsors Wanted
In the meantime, we have a great opportunity for a sponsor willing to support this next event. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested and/or want some more information: @readingggd or post a comment here.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing many of you on the 23rd.

Thank You and Dates for May

Thank you to those who came along on Thursday, despite the weather and the traffic! It was lovely to see you all at the April Reading Girl Geek Dinner.

Special thanks to our speaker Rachel Cooper and, of course, our sponsors Microsoft UK – without whom this event would not have been possible.

The next event will take place on Thursday 20th May and the registration page will be up very soon.

If you are interested in speaking at any of our upcoming events, or know of someone who is, please let us know. If you wish to support Reading GGD in any other way (including sponsoring one or several dinners), please do get in touch.

Have a lovely Easter!

The Reading GGD Team

April Reading Girl Geek Dinner – and the Team

1 Comment


[tweetmeme source=readinggd]We are setting up regular Reading Girl Geek Dinners for this year: we are holding them on the THIRD Thursday of each month after this session. We are always interested in your opinion, what you would like to hear about and, of course, if you wish to sponsor the event.

We are also delighted to announce that Natasha O’Brien has joined the Reading GGD team.


Our next event is Thursday 1st April (no joke!) and it is sponsored by Microsoft UK. We will be going back to La Tasca in central Reading.


The event will commence at 6.30pm; a lovely tapas dinner will follow from 7pm and we will have some time for networking during and after the meal.


The theme of the evening is “Dedicated to Ada Lovelace”. We will have a very interesting and entertaining speaker: Rachel Cooper, from Graphico – who will be talking about how she started in IT and about the amazing figure of Ada Lovelace.

Full Details:

  • Date & Time: Thursday, 1st April, 6:30pm for a 7pm start
  • End Time: Late
  • Venue: La Tasca, Reading
  • Hosted by: Girl Geek Dinners
  • Food & Drink: Spanish tapas, buy your own drinks
  • Subject for the evening: Dedicated to Ada Lovelace
  • Format: Reception, Dinner, Conversation
  • Capacity: 40 people
  • Attendees: As ever, boy geeks are welcome to attend if invited by a girl geek although on this occasion we do stress that there are few and limited spaces so more boy geeks = less girl geeks.

If you’d like to attend on 1st April, please sign up via the Register Now button below, and we’ll see you at the event!

See you in 2010

[tweetmeme]The last Reading GGD of 2009 was held on 10th December at La Tasca, with 28 girls and guys attending. Thanks to all of you for coming and we hope to see you in the New Year.

Our sponsors, Symantec, donated some cool hoodies, that were quite successful, judging by the number of us who took them and were wearing them (some even on the night).

Thanks again to Symantec for their support in 2009 and have a lovely Holiday!