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The April dinner was held at The Oak Leaf in Sandton. The venue is versatile and offer both indoor and outdoor seating, and is great for families with small children. The service was friendly, with special arrangements made for guests with different dietary requirements to the rest of the attendees. I’ve had a look at their menu (not my best idea shortly before lunch time) and will definitely have to visit them again to try some of the dishes.
For the Girl Geeks they served a lovely garlic and caramelised onion focaccia, followed by a delicious buffet, and rounded off with a choice of apple pie or ice cream and hot chocolate sauce – the pie was a winner!

As always the sponsors supply loads of nice goodies for each attendant, and our “well-behaved women seldom make history” bags by main sponsor ThoughtWorks contained a copy of Pie Magazine, some Sheckter’s Organic Energy Lite, a nail file by Allure Salon, a bath bomb from Tranquil Body Treats, and vouchers for Piza e Vino and Fast Date. ThoughtWorks also supplied a Raspberry Pi as the prize for the best description of what Raspberry Pi is (hint: it’s not edible).

Undoubtedly the favourite (returning) sponsor was Reciprocal Wine, who again provided the welcome drinks. We could also order wine from them to consume immediately, or to be delivered later. The wine is really good, but I think most of the ladies who attended would agree that they guys from Reciprocal were the real hit! Our favourite sponsor provided a decanter as prize for the best tweet of the night, and fuelled on the welcome drink (and an empty stomach), I not only won, but also completely drained my phone’s battery.

The evening’s speakers were Nozipho Mngomezulu, a partner at Webber Wentzel, who talked about social media and the law (she made loads of valid points, discussed prominent cases and relevant case studies, but it basically boils down to “don’t be stupid” – which disqualifies half of people who do use social media, but what can you do?), and Rachel Laycock, lead consultant at ThoughtWorks, and a dev that completely breaks the conventional mould of what geeks are supposed to be like.

Thanks to the organisers for another great evening of good food and wine, informative speakers, fabulous treats, and excellent company. Good luck to convener Leigh-Ann who’s getting ready to welcome a pair of tiny pink feet into her life, and will be arranging the next event for the second half of the year (just remember to get the guys from Reciprocal Wine again, and we won’t complain too much about the long wait ;))

And to the girly geeks I didn’t get around to meeting this time around, we’ll catch up online in the meantime!

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• Girl Geek Dinners Johannesburg (wiscellaneous.com)
• What can you do with a Raspberry Pi? (psyked.co.uk)
• Raspberry Pi calculations replace mechanical engineering on 3D printer (adafruit.com)
• 47 Raspberry Pi Projects to Inspire Your Next Build (adafruit.com)
• Turn your Raspberry Pi into a Scan-To-Cloud Device (adafruit.com)