Next event: February 2026 – Meetup

Are you curious about tech, software, web design, or development? We’re a Stafford-based, friendly and inclusive meetup group that gathers every last Thursday of the month (taking a break in December) for an evening of engaging discussions. Whether you’re new or experienced, you’re very welcome to come along and connect with fellow enthusiasts.  

Why come along

You don’t need to be an expert to join in. Many people come on their own for the first time and find it a relaxed, welcoming space to learn, share, and meet others doing similar work or exploring similar interests.  

When and where

We meet from 18:00 at Codeweavers, Unit 16 & 17 Waterfront Way, Stafford, ST16 2HQ — an easy-to-find venue next to the Waterfront Multi-Storey Car Park. Parking is right next door and open until midnight, with a reduced evening rate if you arrive after 6pm. We’re also a short walk from Stafford Station.  

Upon your arrival, you’ll receive a warm welcome and a “Hello, my name is” sticker to make introductions easy. There’s food and drink to enjoy and plenty of time to chat before we get into a mix of talks and discussions.  

For full directions, parking details and accessibility info, visit our About page.

Cost & how to join

It’s completely free to attend. Simply RSVP on Meetup to secure your spot, and we’ll see you there. If you’re unsure about anything before the event, feel free to reach out.  

Join us on Meetup

RSVP on Meetup

January 2026 – Meetup

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the January meetup! A huge thank you to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event—we really appreciate the support. Another big thank you to Codeweavers for hosting and supporting the meetup—their continued generosity makes these sessions possible.

Talk

Weaponised Liability with CSS

Adam Harding — Lead UX Designer, Instem

Adam kicked off the year with his talk “Weaponised Liability with CSS”, arguing that by writing highly specialised, esoteric code, developers could make themselves indispensable—turning advanced CSS knowledge into job security!

Adam followed with a series of demos showing how far modern CSS has come. He walked through advanced features like anchor positioning for tooltips, scroll-driven animations, and typed custom properties, highlighting how native CSS can now solve problems that once required JavaScript. He also compared his own concise 84-line implementation against AI-generated alternatives that ballooned to well over 300 lines whilst still managing to miss the mark, making a case for human judgement in code creation.

The real takeaway was clear: embrace the power of modern CSS, but do so thoughtfully, with clear documentation, readable code, and a commitment to sharing knowledge rather than hoarding it.

Thanks, Ed Barton, for photographing the event for us.

November 2025 – Meetup

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the November meetup! A huge thank you to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event—we really appreciate the support. Another big thank you to Codeweavers for hosting and supporting the meetup—their continued generosity makes these sessions possible.

Talk

Algorithms for autonomous machines

Sam Wane — Senior Lecturer, Harper Adams University

Machines that work in the real world need to adapt to the ever changing and unpredictable environment.

They sense these changes through sensors and make changes using motors. This is a continuous feedback loop of sense-think-act, continuous small changes are what enables machines to operate in the real world.

For example, an autonomous car driving on a straight road will need to continuously adjust the steering wheel to keep it on a true course.

This talk, peppered with demonstrations, will explore how these feedback loops operate and will demonstrate some algorithms to enable machines to work in the real world: such as planning a route to a location, how a drone autopilot allows it to maintain a fixed height and location regardless of wind patterns, and how mobile robots find their way around.

Thanks, Ian Knight, for photographing the event for us.

October 2025 – Meetup

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the October meetup! A huge thank you to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event—we really appreciate the support. Another big thank you to Codeweavers for hosting and supporting the meetup—their continued generosity makes these sessions possible.

Talk

Scaling Teams, Lead Change & Go Programming Effect

Adam Davis — Senior Systems Development Manager, bet365

Scaling a team isn’t just about adding people or process — it’s about navigating the messy, human side of growth.

In this talk, I’ll share hard-earned lessons from leading teams through fast change: what breaks, what helps, and how to keep people aligned when things are moving quickly. Along the way, I’ll touch on how technical decisions — like the languages we choose (including Go) — shape the way teams communicate, build trust, and handle complexity.

It’s a talk about people, not just code — and how to grow without losing what made your team great in the first place.

Thanks, Ed Barton, for photographing the event for us.

September 2025 – Meetup

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the September meetup! A huge thank you to Tree Thunk for sponsoring the event—we really appreciate the support. Another big thank you to Codeweavers for hosting and supporting the meetup—their continued generosity makes these sessions possible.

Talk

Tracking an autonomous robot

Callum Booth — Senior Frontend Engineer, Dexory

Needing greater insights into the historical state of our Robot fleet at any given point in time, we embarked on a system to be able to see and playback a robot’s events over time.

Callum’s talk focused on a recent project at Dexory, an autonomous robotics provider. Dexory’s robots scan warehouse racking to track inventory, measure stock levels and optimise space utilisation. Callum’s team built a web app to consolidate the robots’ data, allowing users to replay their movements and see exactly what happened at any point in time. The goal was to turn fleeting telemetry—camera feeds, location, battery, state and alerts—into a searchable history, making it possible to review incidents such as forklift collisions or failed missions in full context.

He demonstrated a digital-twin interface featuring a map view, multiple camera angles and a scrub-able timeline that stitches per-second snapshots into a video-style playback, complete with accurate timezone handling. Behind the scenes, the UI is built with React, using React Query for incremental data fetching and Jotai for fine-grained state management, delivering smooth 60 fps playback without unnecessary re-renders. Callum also shared performance insights, including pointer-based iteration through time-series data, mitigating setInterval drift, and using spring animations, before explaining how the data is stored on-device and offloaded for long-term analysis.