CollabDays Review – The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park

This week, CollabDays Bletchley Park took place at The National Museum of Computing. CollabDays is a smaller, one day regional version of the European Collab Summit in Dusseldorf and North American Collab Summit in Branson, MI.

Tony Pounder of ID-Live and a fellow Microsoft MVP Paul Hunt joined Brett Lonsdale (Founder of Lightning Tools, and Microsoft 365 Apps and Services MVP) as organizers of CollabDays Bletchley Park. We chose to host CollabDays at The National Museum of Computing as the museum is home to the largest collection of working computers in the world, and also the home of WW2 code breaking machines such as The Bombe and Colossus.

Image from the National Archive – Taken 1943
Brett Lonsdale at the same WORKING machine in 2022

As well as being home to a national heritage of computers, The National Museum of Computing are involved in many great causes which include helping young adults with autism into the workplace, and children in technology. Brett Lonsdale has been privileged to help mentor some of the children, and spent a day working with some of the young adults with autism.

The museum relies on donations and ticket sales for its running costs, staff, and equipment. Therefore, by hosting our CollabDays event at The National Museum of Computing, we are donating all funds to the museum, and helping to create awareness of the museum. Storm (Perfect name for someone associated with Lightning Tools), and Brett discuss the event prior to it taking place this week.

The event could not have happened without over 20 speakers from all over Europe giving up their time, and travel expenses to be at the event so that they can share their knowledge of Microsoft 365. We had sessions on Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages, Power BI, SharePoint, Viva, Teams, and Azure. The sessions were well supported by the attendees who were able to attend free of charge.

Matt Weston (Microsoft MVP) from Vantage 365 speaking on Power Automate & Microsoft Teams with a back drop of the Heath Robinson in the Tunny Gallery.

Companies including Lightning Tools, NLightning, 365Tribe, Axioworks, Vantage365, and iThink365 sponsored the event. The sponsorship help to cover the costs of catering for the attendees, but also the remainder of any costs as a donation to the museum.

If you are interested in sponsoring, attending, or speaking at the next CollabDays, Please check out the CollabDays.Org web site.

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