15 years of Portsmouth Freelancers Meet: Revisiting old meetups, and evolving the future ones

Last modified: August 9, 2025

Little did I know when I first put a Tweet out asking for any freelancers to meet me in a pub in Portsmouth in 2010, that I would still be doing the same thing 15 years later (just without the existence of Twitter lol).

This August I am celebrating 15 years of running a fun, casual networking group here in Portsmouth! We’ve met nearly every month for one and a half decades, and over that time I’ve met hundreds of local creatives, students, entrepreneurs, business owners and the rest. I’ve seen businesses start, projects collaborated on, friendships made, and even relationships form!

PFMeet is one of the things I’m most proud of and I’d love to share with you a few stories from over the years.

Where it all started

I feel like I’ve told this story a thousand times but you never know who may be reading who has never heard of PFMeet, or who has been lurking on socials and unsure whether to come along. But here’s my story. 

I moved to Portsmouth in 2008 fresh out of University and attempting to start my own business as a web developer and freelancer (still now running – Starboard)

I reached out to a couple of local freelancers I found via Google, we went for a coffee, and I was invited to a networking event that would run once a month, at lunch time, on a Friday at the King Street Tavern. I really enjoyed meeting other businesses and freelancers there, but for some reason the meetup stopped after a few months.

I looked around for another one but alas, this was the time when networking events were pretty sparse (in Portsmouth at least). So I decided to start my own. I thought of the name Portsmouth Freelancers Meet* and I put out a few Tweets saying I was going to be meeting at The Wine Vaults in Southsea, every other Tuesday of the month.

Sitting there at the very first meetup, waiting to see if anyone would show up, I can’t remember if I was nervous or not, but low and behold, 4 people showed up! I remember vividly it was Stuart Lambon, Sam Knight, Jason Bird, and Jon Everitt, most of which I am still in contact with. Stuart is still a regular PFMeeter to this day and close friend:

“I was a little nervous at first to go along. It was 2010 and as a second-year University student, I was keen to make new friends and contacts in the industry and this seemed like a great opportunity. When I arrived at The Wine Vaults I was instantly put at ease and it was very obvious to me that I’d come to the perfect event for me—relaxed, friendly and knowledgeable.

The first PF Meet took place over a few beers with a few likeminded individuals who wanted to connect and it set the tone for future meetups. 

Since this first PF Meet I have attended countless events, gained lots of work, met some incredible friends and learned lots! It’s probably the main reason that I decided to become a freelance designer after completing my studies. The fact that it’s still going strong 15 years later is a credit to how useful and important it’s been to people.”

– Stuart Lambon, Designer & Developer

I continued the next meetups and it slowly snowballed (if you can slowly snowball) and over the next couple of months, I ended up meeting and making friends for life with Tom Kentell, Dave Walsh, Chris Rose and Alex Stanhope.

“I’ve been going to PF Meet since the beginning back in 2010. Seems like a lifetime ago now, but I’ve truly made friends for life and had some fantastic times. It’s a great place to meet people from all walks of life and industries.”

– Tom Kentell, Freelance Web Developer 

“My favourite PF Meet memory is probably the 2015 Summer Party. At that point, PF meet had been running for 5 years and it felt like everyone who attended regularly were quite close — it felt like a strong community and people were always glad to see each other and catch up. Even if it was someone you hadn’t seen in a year, the familiarity and connection were still there, so you could pick up the conversation right where you left off.

That night, a group of us had decided we wanted to do something special for Jo, to thank them for creating PF Meet and giving us a place to connect with like-minded people; sometimes there were job opportunities but, mostly, I’d say PF Meet was a place for people to connect, to make friends and just be themselves.

We decided to fill a small box with trinkets and gifts to hand over that night. I was unsure whether to pass it on privately at some point or make a bigger thing out of it. As it was the 5 year mark, I decided that, well, this needed to be special and there needed to be a public speech to really show how meaningful it was.

That evening, when the time felt right, I asked for everyone’s attention and made a small speech to say how grateful we all were for Jo creating PF Meet and all the wonderful friendships and opportunities that have come from it, and then I handed the box of gifts over. It was truly wonderful to see everyone cheer and witness all the love directed at Jo in that moment.”

– Dave Walsh, Web Developer

*Why call it Portsmouth Freelancers Meet?

I was actually inspired by a meetup I saw in Guildford called Guildford Web Meet that was run by Kyan. They ran a very popular web developer/designer meetup, however I wanted mine to include not just web people because I was very much making films at the time, so I opted for ‘Freelancers’ to include all industries!

How the meetup grew – the first Christmas party, Summer parties and beyond

So it started off as being every 2 weeks, but that soon became tricky where the group split between the two meetup times, so it became every 2nd Tuesday of the month which really pulled everyone together.

In Christmas 2010 we had our first Christmas party where we had around 20 people attend. We had geeky cupcakes, music, Christmas hats etc. It was pretty low key but I just remember it being one of the most fun nights because I was having a party with new nerdy friends.

From there it grew into me throwing a summer party the following year in August, and then subsequent Christmas & Summer parties every year. And from that fateful first meetup in 2010 I’ve met some of the most amazing people, a lot of which have become best friends of mine. I would do another shout out but I’m scared to miss anyone important out!

So here’s some photos from over the years:

Some stats

Really amazing to see all these stats from over 15 years, how many of these were you present for? Not going to lie, had to really delve into the memory banks for this!

• 145+ meetups held
• 14 Christmas parties
• 10 summer parties
• 10+ venues hosted us over the years (Wine Vaults, The Atrium, Port 57/Bonzo Studio, Little Johnny Russells, The White Horse / Brewhouse & Kitchen, Brewhouse & Kitchen Guildhall, Game Over, Staggeringly Good, Dice Board game & Lounge, Sir Loin of Beef)
• 8+ One Off events (Bomberman tournaments, Apple keynote screenings, Retro gaming nights, Board game socials, A Drink & Dribbble crossover, the infamous Big Geek Quiz)
• 5 PubHack Events

Brand & website evolution

I decided to delve into the archives and found some of the old branding and as well as the websites, thought I’d share that here too:

Previous websites:

On the note of the bigger events and previous events, that leads me onto a wider topic:

Why aren’t I putting on as many Summer/Christmas parties these days?

I think there are various reasons as to why these have become increasingly difficult to put on. The first of those is:

Lack of sponsorship.

In the early 2010’s it was much easier to get sponsorship for these kinds of events because there were a lot of start up companies such as hosting, accountants, SaaS companies who wanted to plug their services to freelancers and entrepreneurs specifically. Now those businesses are huge (which is brilliant! Shows their sponsorship paid off) but they no longer sponsor smaller events like this (trust me I’ve tried!).

Social media

I think secondly the changing landscape of social media has made it much harder to sell. When I first started we basically had Facebook, and Twitter to promote the events (which were fairly new in themselves), and we barely had to try. Now socials are oversaturated with adverts, events, and a constant bombardment of information. The core PFMeet community is now split between Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Whatsapp, Slack, etc and there are also people who are tired of social media and don’t use it any more. It makes promoting the events either expensive (as you have to pay for adverts for anyone to actually see them) or extremely time consuming (posting across multiple platforms multiple times a week).

Things are expensive

And the third thing is the cost of living. Going back to the early 2010’s again, I used to be able to give summer party tickets away for free (or for a fiver) and have sponsorship money left over for free drinks, merchandise, swag we’d give away, and all sorts. It just doesn’t happen anymore and the price per head just for a simple BBQ is around £20.

Either way, as much as I would love to put on these twice yearly events, it’s genuinely a really hard sell for many months before hand to get ticket sales enough to make it viable, so for now I’ve just stuck with one off special events and continuing with what’s really important – having a regular space for our lovely freelancers to meet once a month.

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What’s next for PFMeet?

Well, this is the exciting part! With the ever changing landscape of the last 15 years, I’ve felt that it’s time to shake up PFMeet a bit (just a little!) for the first time in a while. There are multiple regular networking groups in Portsmouth now which is fantastic as I get to go along as a punter and meet people from outside the PFMeet network (although there is a lot of crossover!). I’ve been learning from these

Meet the new ambassadors

This year I’ve also added 2 PFMeet ambassadors for the first time in Charlotte Simonsen and Ryan Thickett, both of who have been regular attendees for over 10 years and are pros at both running events, and being amazing and personable networkers (not to mention being 2 of my besties!). And we’ve been discussing in great detail this year what we’d like to see happen over the coming months. 

“I first came to PFMeet not long after I graduated, when Jo (who I ended up living with for a bit back then) dragged me along. I was new to the working world and hadn’t really found my feet, and as a newbie web dev I was deep in imposter syndrome. But PFMeet gave me a space to meet people who made me feel welcome, which was exactly what I needed. It wasn’t stuffy or forced, just friendly chats with people figuring things out, same as me. I’ve made great friends through it, found unexpected opportunities, and it even gave me the nudge to start events of my own, like Hack Pompey. It’s wild to think how much of my career traces back to those first few meetups in the pub.”

– Ryan Thickett, Hack Pompey

We want to offer PFMeet as something more than a meetup in a pub (whilst retaining that aspect too). We want it to be an easier place to network, a place to learn, and to put it back on the map as a networking group that people are talking about in a noisy social media world. To do this we want to:

• Encourage as many new people to attend as possible
• Retain what the regulars love about PFMeet
• Introduce an easier / better way to network that really makes sure new members are integrated and welcomed.

And so here is the plan we have come up with:

What’s going to change?

A rebrand

Phase one of this is going to a rebrand. PFMeet has had the same look and feel for well over 12 years now (thank you Karl March for your fantastic branding (salute emoji) it has stood the test of time), and like all of us going through a midlife crisis (or maybe that’s just me), a makeover is a great first step to feeling fresh again. 

Charlotte is currently working on a rebrand which I’m very excited to be sharing with you soon.

A little structure change

From observing other meetups in and around the area, we’ve decided that a little structure is needed. What this will look like is:

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• 6-7pm – CATCHUP – After work mingling & networking, a chance to catch up over a pint or come and introduce yourself before the main event.
• 7pm – INTROS – A PFmeet intro by Jo, followed by a very quick chance for each person to introduce themselves (just a 10 word intro e.g. “Hi I’m Jo, I’m a freelance web developer & UX designer). For anyone new who’s attending this will be a good chance to get to know who is there that night and quickly find out who you want to talk to.
• 7:15pm – GUEST SPEAKER. This will be a short 10-15 minute talk by a regular PFMeeter on a subject of their choice. If you’d like to apply to be a speaker, please read here.
• 7:30pm – 9pm – NETWORKING. Grab yourself a drink from the bar and enjoy some snacks courtesy of us and get chatting!

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What else is in the works?

We are still mulling over some ideas such as introducing a microtheme for certain events so we can celebrate certain areas such as Web, Design, Film, or certain aspects of Freelancing such as Accounting, Pitching, etc. 

We’re also developing and designing a deck of Icebreaker cards for PFMeet, of which the prototype has proved fun at events earlier this year.

There are documents full of ideas behind the scenes, there’s always so much potential with so many lovely and talented people coming along each month, but we want to do one thing at a time.

Want to have your say?

We are also very open to suggestions as to ways to improve the meetup from those who have been before, or who come along regularly because it’s your meetup. I fully understand that there’s no one size fits all format for networking, some people prefer morning, some afternoon, some evening. Some prefer intros, some don’t. We’re learning as we go and just want to create the best, most inclusive experience possible. 

Give us a shout in DM’s (Facebook or Instagram), email, or through Slack and Whatsapp (if you’re in the group) if you have any suggestions!

We’re super excited to move PFMeet forward and we hope you’re excited to come with us on this journey.

The next meetup is in August, on Thursday the 14th. You can register here:

Want to share your story?

We’d love to continue building the PFMeet community, so if you have a story you want to share about coming along to any of the events (no matter how regular you attend) please do email them to me!