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Organizing meetup
Meetups are fun, lot of learnings, new friends, interesting discussions etc ... Organising a meetup is fun but at times gets hectic for organizer and casual laziness affects meetup impact. The write up is list of guidelines for organizers. Following are pointers for meetups of kind talks, workshops and dev sprint.
Venue is an important part of meetup and venue requirement changes depending on type of meetup.
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Talks:
A hall with ~50 seating capacity should be fine.
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Workshops:
Generally attendance will be high. Venue should be able to accommodate ~80 people. Also, it is better if there are tables, power extensions.
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Dev Sprints:
People will work in groups. Even if there is no big hall, small rooms to acommodate each group should be fine.
Meetups are becoming very popular and lot of meetup groups started to show up. It is harder to find a host and fixing the venue is the first priority. Fixing the venue 1 month before the event is good. Sometimes first host may turn down the option to host and second or third host may agree, so buffer helps.
While approaching the host, the first questions pops up is "What is the agenda of the meetup?". BangPypers meetups are talks, workshops and dev sprint. Deciding the meetup kind early helps in approaching the hosts.
Adhering to theme for meetup attracts like minded people.
Workshop are generally hands on session for 3 to 6 hours and handled by 1 or 2 tutors. Talks on other hand is for 3 hours and can have 3-5 sessions depending on duration of slots. Getting the speakers for the talks (15 minutes or 30 minutes slot) is most time taking task. Mailing list, social media are channels for inviting speakers. Reaching out in personal network is also a good option.
Spreading word about the speaking opportunity as early as possible is good, 3 - 4 weeks before the event is good. Meetup is a great place for first time to present their work and observation. So encouraging the first timers implicitly and explicitly is highly recommended.
Venue has fixed seating capacity. RSVP is method to predict the participant turnout. Most of the events are free of cost and free events has notorious low turnouts. Depending on meetups turn out ratio vary. 2-3 years back, BangPypers turn out ratio was 30%. Today it is between 50% - 70%. Logistics of the meetup like Tea, Lunch, swag depends is heavily dependent on participants count.
RSVPing to event is just a button click of zero cost. Lot of people RSVP early and forget about the meetup. From experience people who RSVP late turn up to the event. Open RSVP 5 - 7 days before the event.
Have a max cap for RSVP, once RSVP if full, put people in wait list. Two days before the event send a reminder to all RSVPed and wait listed participants about the event, general instructions and ask uninterested participant to cancel the RSVP. Reminder emails increases up to 10% more participation. Without reminder emails, forgotten participants realise the meetup on the day of the event and don't turn up.
After meetup, make it mandatory to collect the feedback. Feedback can be open discussion or google forms. Don't expect every participant to give feedback. 15% to 70% participants provide feedback. When more participants
provide feedback, event is generally good.
Take feedback as serious measure to improve the quality of the meetup. Share the feedback with host, speakers and encourage the speakers to participate in future events.
Write a blog post about the meetup at the end of the day.