This year’s London Perl & Raku Workshop took place on 29 November, a couple of days before I write these lines. I first attended this conference in 2018 when I gave a talk about starting my life as a programmer, and I’ve attended every iteration since then.

But this year was special, because it was the first time I was in the organising committee. And this was not just my first time organising this conference in particular, but the first time I ever helped organise an event of this type at all.

I knew that organising a conference would not be easy, and indeed there are a lot of things that I would now have done differently. There’s a lot to digest, and I know my feelings will change as time passes and the dust settles. But I wanted to leave here a collection of my fresh thoughts about the experience and its impact, even if only for future reference.

• The experience was a success. It was hard, and there were times when I would not have put my money on the event even taking place, but I’m glad that we stuck with it and pushed forward regardless. I think the venue worked well, and I think the post-event social was good, with plenty of attendees and a comfortable room for ourselves.

• The community that participates in this event is incredible. We announced the event late in the year, with less than a month’s head start, and were floored by the number of talk submissions and the attendance. All in all, we had 22 talks, 7 of which were lightning talks, from 18 different speakers. There were 57 registered attendees all in all.

• While we can have a successful conference despite the organising team’s failings (because the community is amazing), we should not abuse this. I know there were people who care deeply about this community in general and this event in particular who could not attend or did not have time to prepare the talks they would have liked. I cannot apologise enough for this, and I at least will try to avoid this in the future. We owe the community that much. 🙇

• Even in his absence, Matt Trout’s presence was clearly felt. He was explicitly present in Stevan Little’s “YAARP” talk and in several conversations during the social, but his contributions had a much broader silent impact. We build on the shoulders of giants. Matt, you are already missed.

• Remote talks are hard. Not only for the obvious technical reasons, but also because they are harder to manage as an organiser. They are good in principle, because they can accommodate more of people’s varying circumstances. But even when everything goes to plan it is difficult to make them feel like they fit with the rest. I do not think this is a technology problem, and I’m not sure it can be solved.

• Swag is not that important. Or at least not important enough for anyone to mention to us that they wished they had received a hoodie or a scarf or what have you. That said, I do feel that having some tangible reminder that the event took place would have been nice.

• I missed having some sort of catering. It was awkward to have a “coffee break” which meant “go outside and find yourselves some coffee”. And I don’t know what to say: I like biscuits. I want biscuits.

All in all, I am happy that I participated in this year’s event, and I look forward to helping bring the next iteration of this event to fruition next year. More than anything, I am happy to be able to help build this community.

Thank you to Andrew Mehta, Lee Johnson, Julien Fiegehenn, John Davies and very specially to all of those who were there. You made it all worth it.