Most years recently I’ve avoided IWD lunches in Sydney by the simple expedient of being on vacation in north eastern Canada.  But this year it was not possible to squeeze in a late February – early March vacation due to my business trip in December.

But there was one thing that was certain – I did not want my celebration of IWD this year to be a very corporate style expensive lunch at a big hotel.  This year my focus has been on simplicity, frugality and reducing my impact on the planet.

Sharing these feelings recently at lunch with some friends we resolved to create a different kind of IWD celebration.  Something simpler, with a more human face, without experts telling us stuff, and inclusive of girl geeks.

Thus was born the IWD Brown Bag Lunch on 6 March.  It was an experiment to see if we could really get a bunch of women to bring their own lunches and get together to network and raise some money for charity.

The result?  About 20 women & one of my brave male friends turned up to share a meal, talk and share ideas.  It was great fun and we collected some money for IWDA.  Will post some photos of the lunch on Flickr once they’ve been uploaded.