By the end of summer 2017 we had been doing an event almost every day. At this point we needed to get some additional help. We reached out to the community and found Nyah and Claire.
Both of them came on board at the right time. Rosanna and I needed to take a break after the Nomad Takeover and after explaining the ins-and-outs to Nyah and Claire we were finally able to take it easy for a bit.
I wasn’t sure on how this was going to go but both of them were amazing at organising events, right from the start.
We operate our events quite independently. This is a required feature because we are all nomads. We all travel a lot since that is the definition of being a digital nomad in any case.
Claire left Lisbon in late November but will be back in June 2018. Nyah left and returned towards the end of 2017 as well. This means that we need to be able to run the events even if the whole team isn’t in Lisbon at any given point in time.
Our organisers are free to come and go as they please. No one needs to live in Lisbon forever because that would be very un-nomadic.
As we all operate as volunteers, we individually set expectations for ourselves. It is very important to be able to organise and host an entire event yourself. Over the course of the past year we have also developed a how-to and a list of venues that we collaborate with so things have become easier.
Eventually we brought on Kat, Louise, and Olivia as well. This makes us a team of 7 organisers and places us well to plan and execute several nomad events in Lisbon all year round.
Bringing on more co-organisers has also diversified our outlook quite a bit. Every single one of us brings something different to the table. This has resulted in a variety of events and also new venues that we would’ve never imagined possible before.
Ever since the summer of 2017 we’ve stuck to our groove of doing at least one Nomad meetup every week. Thursday has become our day and we have been doing this regularly, every Thursday, for the last 10 months. Some of us weave in and out of Lisbon and whoever is able to, will organise a meetup on Thursday. We’ve also done several other events but those are in addition to our Thursday meetup which always happens like clockwork.
So far, we’ve made it work and we’re going to continue doing regular meetups and several other events as the summer of 2018 rolls around.
There are lots of new things that are happening in Lisbon and we’re going to be at the heart of some of them this summer.
After being nomadic for 5 years Ash chose Lisbon as his base. Now, as a grumpy old man he organises nomad meetups and tells young nomads to get off his porch!