2007 for me. First bake off was at Rockmeisters.
Nope. Effem was the dodgy cable guy - pretty sure he was in Cornwall at the time. I too can’t recall the name of the bloke hosting that bakeoff in Brizzle, but he was younger and altogether less fucking bolshy than Effem.
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Joined in 2006, first bake off was at Sodders (Oxfordshire), John/MIbby was there I think, not sure who else…
Paul was kind enough to pick me up from Banbury Train Station, which was a leap of faith on my part, who knew what horrors lied in wait…
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Banbury isn’t that bad?
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Certainly not the Grammar Police or you would still be doing hard time.
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It wasn’t effem hosting the bake. As sodders said, it was a nice chap.
Penance remembers him. Brizzle postie.
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I went to a bake off near Bristol and the guy had big electrostatic speakers. I think he went by the name 211.
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Thats Justin211 , Dave… He has a pair of professionally modded and re built Apogee’s
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Hornucopia lived in Shirehampton Bristol - His name was Chris but he ran a cafe.
He had Ocillia speakers Don’t think he was a postie
I was there along with the cage fighter and borats.
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And Technobear. He might still be there for all I know.
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I was a late developer… Mar 2009, though I’d been lurking for some months before.
Remember meeting @htm_1968 at Geoff/oldius’ Liverpool bake - not sure if that was the first I went to, or Keith (mf1000) & Jane’s in West Yorks, or another that I’ve forgotten completely.
Spent 12m working in the coffee plant there, it was bad.
Me too…first bake attended was in Oct 09 at @AmDismal 's - as well as Adam, also met Pete coco, Mark B, JJ, Phip papa and many others that day - all have become firm friends.
Laughably, I fetched along a lot of my shiny Jeff Rowland kit and broke my back lugging it down to the man-cave, fully expecting to impress everyone - it didn’t even get plugged in 
Instead, my conversion to proper hifi and horns began.
It was the begining of an addiction to both attending and holding bakes, which, (covid not withstanding) I still have today. 
Good friends and good times…
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My first bakeoff was one of yours iirc.
Joined wam in 2010, after being on aos for a bit. Feel a bit embarrased about that now tbh.
Went to my first Scalford the year OB almost forgot he should have been there. Setup my £100 of ebay stuff bought a few weeks before and had a super time.
Feeling quite emotional now.
Whatever happened to that great lummox that organised it?
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Your memory serves you well, he showed-up an hour early, dismantled my system, put his (awful sounding) amp in and turned his (awful sounding) music up so stupidly loud that a neighbour came straight over and threatened violence (after I called him a cunt, to be fair).
He stayed well beyond the bitter end, and I had to first ask - and then tell him to leave so I could run Rob back to Banbury, because I sure as fuck did not want him there when I came back.
Takes some doing to creep me out, but he managed it. Very strange fucker.
Good bakeoff - my ‘house’ was the size of a single garage and at one point there were somewhere between 25 and 30 people in and outside of it, including a couple of coma-cases in bushes…
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I reckon it would all have gone much worse if you’d have actually plugged those amps in to the Lowthers!
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Bake offs can be split into two eras BJ and AJ
Before Jim ,He wasn’t there, and After Jim, where he was guaranteed to be there!
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Stinks the whole town out if the wind goes the wrong way. Not as bad as the Warrington soap factory, mind.
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