Happy new years Steemian friends!
Our end of the year meetup was a lot of fun and I just wanted to post a few pictures from the event so those who couldn't make it can still see what we were up to.
We had a great venue down town and a real nice gathering of around 20 plus people from Steemit, local blockchain communities, and a few others from out of town. I was amazed to find some came from as far away as Washington DC!

There was a nice spread provided by our sponsor friends @splinterlands. Everyone ate, mingled and discussed the whole range of Steem, crypto and blockchain topics and generally had a fun time getting to know each other.
I was geeking a bit, not just cause we had
@yabapmatt @yabapmatt and
@yabapmatt in the house to talk about the latest haps with
@yabapmatt and Steemit, but also because Matt got us some these awesome #SteemPhilly tshirts! I love the logo
@yabapmatt made us and seeing it on a shirt, gave me a big smile.

After an hour or so of networking and conversation, we all gathered around to hear what our esteemed speakers had to share with us.
It was a thrill to have
@Andrarchy give us an overview of the new communities feature and other things currently in the works.


Some follow up discussion which included technical nuances were a bit above my pay-grade but fascinating none the less. I'm very excited to be coming back into Steemit after a long hiatus!
Then we heard from
@yabapmatt and
@yabapmatt on the backstory and current state of
@yabapmatt
It's no secret that their game and community are on fire, but I loved hearing some of the behind the scenes developments and what's coming down the pipe.

I'm going to speculate a bit here, and say this game maybe one of the things that attracts a whole new body of users to the crypto world in the next few years. They've got both the vision and the know how to make great things happen in the space and it's amazing to see and hear them discuss it.
As the night was winding down a bit
@kennethbosak (what would a Philly crypto meetup be without him?) asked if he could have the Splinterlands banner, to which
@kennethbosak generously agreed. And with this final pic the night came to an end. Well sort of... some conversations continued outside, on the street for another 20 minutes. :)
Overall a great meetup and a great way to end the year. Next time I'm definitely going to get someone else to take the pictures though! (A pro like friends
@mikeycolon,
@mikeycolon would rock!)
Thanks again to Matt, Aggroed, Andrarchy and everyone else that came out. See you again in March!