Planning My Next Meetup [hopefully not MIS] Adventure (Part 3)
Posted by Mark on July 22, 2019 at 07:32 | Last modified: January 21, 2019 10:53Following my e-mail posted last time, Meetup responded:
> Hi there, sounds like a great potential group! Many groups
> cover metro areas, and not just a single city. Meetups should
> be offline and in real life. but online meetings are okay as
> long as they’re not the majority of the group’s events.
I was really describing multiple metropolitan areas (Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Lansing).
> Perhaps you could have a Slack group for your online
> correspondence and use Meetup to access our community
> and gain new members, and plan in-person events?
I replied:
> Thanks for your input.
>
> From what you describe, though, would this be acceptable for
> Meetup? The purpose of this group is to learn and/or help each
> other with their trading by working together on trades. Trading
> really lends itself to screen sharing, screenshots, and other
> things that can be posted on something like Slack, Yahoo! Groups,
> etc. Most of our regular work would therefore be online. The
> Meetups would perhaps be quarterly to allow us the chance to
> visit in-person those people with whom we work every day. My
> hope is that Meetup can bring us together in the first place.
Meetup replied:
> While we’re not able to offer specific advice or coaching on
> creating on your group, we recommend closely reviewing our
> Meetup Group Policies to ensure when you create your group it
> adheres to… [our] guidelines…
>
> Once you submit your new group, a member of the Community
> Experience team will review the group for approval.
I felt like we were once again miscommunicating as described in the first paragraph of the excerpt here. Their initial response (second paragraph, above) clearly expressed a conflict, but they seemed to be encouraging me to go forward regardless.
I responded:
> I’m not looking for advice or coaching. I’m trying to figure out
> if my group meets your guidelines. You wrote, “perhaps…
> [use]… a Slack group for your online correspondence and use
> Meetup to access our community… gain new members, and plan
> in-person events?” That is exactly what I would like to do.
> However, the previous paragraph says “online meetings…
> [cannot be] the majority of the group’s events.” That is
> problematic since the group would mainly be a daily online
> work group. Occasional in-person events would also give us
> the opportunity to meet face-to-face people with whom we
> have been doing daily work.
>
> I’ve been attending Meetups for over 10 years and I see
> Meetup as the perfect tool for this. I looked at your
> Standards document, though, and saw: “Be Local. Meetup
> is intended for building local community. Meetup should
> not be used primarily for scheduling online meetings,
> conference calls, or WEBINARS ACROSS GEOGRAPHIES…
> Meetup’s features should be used to build the group’s
> capacity and create opportunities for meaningful connections
> within a local community.” [emphasis mine]
>
> That also suggests this would not be a viable Meetup. As
> mentioned in my initial inquiry, I feel the need to cast a
> wider geographic net to find the few people who would really
> be interested/benefit from a group like this.
Meetup replied:
> The focus of a Meetup group would be in person interactions,
> and at least 50% of the interactions should be local and
> face to face.
Finally, a resolution! Meetup is not a direct solution for the kind of blended (online and face-to-face) group I wish to create.