Beautiful Bajan Nomad Social Community! 🎉🎉🎉
I want to personally offer you my support and encouragement at this time as we navigate a new normal in Barbados in light of the unfolding and very important news regarding the pandemic. I’m incredibly pleased to hear that so many of you are very committed to doing your part to respect the health and safety needs of Barbados, and this is a perfect opportunity for us as a community to show Barbados that their new nomad community loves Barbados as much as Barbados has shown love to us.
As the news & needed restrictions on the island directly affects Bajan Nomad Social’s Community regarding meetups - it was important to make a few adjustments, share context on the adjustments, and the bright future of what’s ahead!
Bajan Nomad Social was started with an intention to create a safe, supportive nomad community for organizing meetups & events to explore and enjoy Barbados. Please know that that intention will never change!
Creating this space for nomads was never meant to be exclusive of locals, and it’s been wonderful having the support and participation of many key locals in our community as we’ve grown. The nomad journey can be quite daunting, and Bajan Nomad Social has become a bit of an entry point for newcomers, and will continue to do so with open arms.
As many of you know, this intention for the community was originally pursued via a chat group as the main community platform, with only a literal handful of members who organized meetups to do fun things around the island. There was no community google doc :) There were no community chat group rules. It was just a purely organic thing. To see that Bajan Nomad Social has grown to so many members is pretty amazing. Seriously - thank you all for being a part of this epic ride!
It makes my heart leap with joy to hear stories about friendships formed through Bajan Nomad Social community organized events and meetups on catamarans, hikes through the forests, karaoke nights, co-work meetups, dinners, happy hours, and my favorite personal night - the night of our official holiday season meetup.
It also makes my heart leap with joy to see so many of the new community groups that were created from Bajan Nomad Social and shared with Bajan Nomad Social - community groups for everything from cooking to scuba to surf to entrepreneurship to even a group for island dog owners 🐶. It’s really an intangible feeling to see how many wonderful things have grown!
I want you to know that the Bajan Nomad Social community and community purpose has no plans to stop growing or being there for you and newcomers, but there are a few ways that it will be doing so a bit differently:
Moving forward, as Barbados navigates the serious effects of the pandemic in recent news, all events shared via Bajan Nomad Social (from the admin + community members) will only be virtual until it’s safe again to meet in person & consistent with the Barbadian Government covid protocols.
To that end- save the date for the 1st Bajan Nomad Social Virtual Cowork meetup on Thursday Jan 7th 12pm-3pm & keep tabs on the group google doc for some other virtual events planned from other members of the community! (Yes a virtual quiz night is in the works!)
The bigger more different announcement is that moving forward, the associated whatsapp group for Bajan Nomad Social will be for event + special news alerts that are shared by the admin only.
What this means for the associated whatsapp group:
If you’re already a member of the associated whatsapp group, you can remain in it for updates on events & meetups (all virtual for now) posted via the admin, and occasional verified/vetted news that may be of importance to all of us.
If you have a virtual meetup you’d like planned, submit it directly to me (you know how to find me. If not, use here to reach out) and it will be added to our group google doc and shared in the chat thread
If you created a new online community group (whatsapp/telegram/slack/etc) that you’d like shared with Bajan Nomad Social that is aligned with the community, submit it directly to me (you know how to find me - if not, use here to reach out) and it will be added to our group google doc and shared in the chat thread.
When the island becomes safe again for in-person meetups, then the same will continue
I know that this is going to be a bit of a change, but as the community organizer & Founder, the best thing I know and believe to do, out of the purest intentions of my heart, is to make a safe space and useful community that I know can deliver what is intended, and sustainably so for the long term needs of nomads in Barbados.
Other ways to engage & be a part of the Bajan Nomad Social community outside of the chat group
Follow Bajan Nomad Social on Instagram here
Subscribe to Bajan Nomad Social newsletters like this one on Substack here
Check out the official Bajan Nomad Social Website here
Continue to let new nomads in Barbados know about this community & share with them the Community IG + Substack for them to follow along and join in the meetups + events if the chat group reaches capacity.
I want to thank each and every one of you for being cherished members in the community, and it’s my hope that you can understand why it was necessary to make these adjustments for the long term & that you’ll continue to be a cherished members of the community as we settle into the new format.
I also want to deeply thank and acknowledge the two previous community chat admins. Their time and efforts have meant a lot and will always mean a lot. My thanks to them come with sincere and deepest gratitude. You guys rock 🙌.
Like many digital nomad destinations, there definitely seems to be a need for a general nomad whatsapp chat for nomads in BIM to discuss all general things unrelated to meetups/social events, and certainly the pandemic. If anyone in the community would like to step up and take lead on launching that and admining that group, please let me know, and it will be shared in the Bajan Nomad Social community for folks to join.
The decisions for these format & platform adjustments to the Bajan Nomad Social Community were 100% exclusively mine and what I felt was best for the community as we move forward. If you have any questions/comments/feedback about these adjustments, be sure to share them with me & reach out here.
Last, as many of you know - getting people together for meetups is a passion of mine outside of Bajan Nomad Social. My main day to day work is scaling and growing my venture backed startup Adventurely - a meetup app for digital nomads, solo travelers, and local adventure seekers.
As you can imagine, the pandemic is also affecting the purpose of Adventurely, but I am optimistic of vaccines getting the pandemic under control; I fully believe there will be a huge pent up demand for travel as things become more safe; and it’s exciting to see a growing list of countries around the world rapidly embrace the skyrocketing remote work force with newly crafted digital nomad visas. If you’ve been supportive of my nomad community work here in Barbados, on a personal level it would be really meaningful for you to give Adventurely a try at www.adventurely.app and let me know what you think. (Yes we have a notice that meetups in Barbados are on pause, but you’ll still be able to tinker around with the app!)
Thanks again, have an amazing remainder of your weekend, and if you’d like to create and admin a general digital nomad whatsapp group for Barbados, please let me know and I’ll share it with the group.
Warmest!
MC
Founder / Bajan Nomad Social