The Official Meetup HQ Blog

Happy Halloween!

by Andrea

from all the boys and ghouls from Meetup HQ!

While we tabulate results from the annual Halloween Costume contest, I'd like to give a shout out to the team that won over the crowd as 'best ensemble' (in more ways than one):

That's Antonio as "the van", GaryH as Hannibal Smith, WillH as Faceman Jesse Richards as Murdock and Simon as the one and only B.A. Baracus (or Mr. T). 

What makes this ensemble so special?  These are also the folks behind the design and development of Meetup Alliance: the A-Team of Meetup product design and development. 

Minus the bad attitude, of course. 

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Off-resume Meetup staff talents: Play-doh

by Brendan

In a meeting today, we had some play-doh handy to keep fingers busy while lips were flapping.  At the end, we discovered that Andrea (Support Lead, ya'll probably know her) has quite the skill for play-doh figurines:  I give you a snowman and cat playing with yarn.

Weekly Release: Waiting Lists and more!

by Jesse

Hey there fellow Meetuppers! Even though the staff is busy stitching their Halloween getups for the HQ costume contest on Friday, we've still had time to fix bugs, make improvements, and build cool new features. Here's what we've launched today, October 28th: 

1) Waiting Lists!

One of the features you've been asking for is finally here - say hello to Waiting Lists! Organizers now have the option to turn on Waiting Lists for their Meetup events.

There are two types of Waiting Lists: automatic management is designed to save you time, while manual management is designed to give you more control. Select the option that works best for your Meetup group!

You can find the Waiting List option on the Meetup event creation page, in the "RSVP Settings" section under "Is there an attendee limit." To use Waiting Lists, you must have an attendee limit.

2) Alliance feed enhancements!

Each Meetup Alliance has a feed of automatic updates about its groups, to which we've now added upcoming events from Meetup Groups and photos posted by Meetup Groups. As usual, Meetup privacy settings are respected (if a group's "What's New" feed is set to exclude photos, they won't show in the Alliance feed either.) An additional cool feature allows the Alliance Leader to remove any item from displaying in the feed. These features should help Alliance members see (and be inspired by) all the activity happening in their network of like-minded groups.

And, as always, lots of bug fixes. Click here to read them all and participate in any chatting about the new release.

Thanks,
Jesse

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Organizer of the Week London: Calling all Adventurers!

by Andrea

Jo and Jo know first hand that two heads are better then one.

Congratulations go out to both of them for co-organizing the wildly successful London Adventurers Meetup!

They offer up excellent advice for keeping a large membership happy and coming back for more. 

Check out Angela's interview with them here.  Go team yay!

 

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Your Meetups are more important than ever

by Scott

Fellow 35,000+ Meetup Organizers,

I recorded a short video about why your Meetups are especially important during tough economic times.



How does your Meetup help its members save money, make money, or cope in tough times? Discuss here or below.

We're seeing strong Meetup activity this month... People need your Meetups, so keep organizing!

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Meetups in the Media

by Angela

Congrats to Meetups around the world featured in the news this week!

The Washingtonian

From The Washingtonian: An Interview with Danielle Buckley, Organizer for the The DC/Metro Cupcake Group and her delectable blog.  Yum!

The Las Vegas Sun

From The Las Vegas Sun:  Romance writing, in the name of The Cactus Rose Group:

"Writing is like a calling," Haag said. "To be able to talk with and belong to a group of  people who are similarly motivated is worth its weight in gold."

Korea Times

From The Korea Times, "Explore Diverse Eating Options in Seoul", featuring The Seoul Dining Out Group: 

 "Our meet-ups help us feel a sense of community among our fellow expatriates, Koreans, and people from other countries,''  William said.

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Happy Howl-o-ween! (for a good cause)

by Andrea

 from the Meetups I'd like to attend archive:

Thanks to Tegan for finding this gem!

Everyone loves a good costume party... Cute dogs!  In cute outfits! 

The party was a fundraiser for a local charity, proving that these Meetup members care about their pets and their world. 

What's not to love about having a great time for a great cause?

It's the New York CIty Pug Meetup Group's 4th annual event and it was absolutely fabulous. 

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Self-Organize!

by Scott

Georgian Times: "the public has to self-organize and defend their rights. Otherwise, it is impossible to change the situation."

Weekly Release: October 21st, 2008

by Viviane

Hi Everyone,

Here are some of the bug fixes/enhancements that we're releasing in the upgrade that's going out tomorrow, Tuesday, October 21st:

Bug Fixes/Enhancements

• Question marks in about us page names are resulting in breaking the page.
• Fixed problem with member on the waiting list losing their spot when adding a comment.
• Do not allow waiting list to move people if event is closed or past deadline
• Fixed attendance widget to correctly display number of attendees
• Added copy to let members know to request a refund from an organizer when they've changed their RSVP to no for an event they've paid for via Amazon Payments.

To see the rest and/or share your thoughts, please visit our boards.

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Organizer of the Week: Benvenuti, Hollywood!

by Andrea

Ciao to Umberto of The Hollywood/LA Italian Language Meetup Group, our Organizer of the Week! 

His easy going management style mirrors his uber-cool, sunny California location.

You don't have to be an expert to mambo Italiano with this group, mixing it up made all the difference.

Check out his interview here.