On 19 March 2010 15:09, Andrew Garrett <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > In London, we had a successful monthly meetup, which was held on the > second Sunday of the month, in a particular pub in London's legal > district, at a particular table, at a particular time. >
The Wikipedians in Bangalore, India also have a meetup on the Second Sunday of every month: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bangalore They have found that having a regular time/place is highly valuable to a solid local community, just the same as the Londonpedians have found. Another thing that the Bangalorians are doing is beginning to invite guest-speakers each month (either locally or by Skype) by way of attracting people who might otherwise think "It will just be the same people each time" and to create a bit of a focus-point for the event. > Just thought I'd throw around the idea of having regular > monthly/bi-monthly meetups in Sydney, rather than having them whenever > PrivateMusings gets bored ;) This way, we can plan ahead and actually > catch up a little more frequently than every 3–4 months. > > As many of the people on this list know, I'm an advocate for in-real-life Wikimedia activities (especially informal meetups) as a way of galvanizing the community to greater sense of cohesion and collaboration. This kind of thing doesn't work everywhere, for local reasons, but I still reckon we should try to have regular activities in our major urban centers (not just Sydney). > Issues to discuss: > * How often? > London and Bangalore can sustain once-a-month, just. I would suggest once every 2 or 3 months to avoid burnout. > * Same venue? Different venue each meetup? Which venue? > I think the advantage of 'same venue' (easily remembered, less organising each time) outweighs the advantage of 'different venue' (diversity). We could always go with a different venue for special occasions if needed. > * Should we advertise it with geonotices? > I reckon geo-notices (the ones that appear on watchlists, not the sitenotice that appears on every page) is the great under-utilised communication tool built into Wikimedia projects. I would definitely vote yes to this. > * Should/how/can we cater to people with regular conflicting engagements? > There's always going to be someone who cannot make it, and I don't think any one individual is/should be indispensable. Find a date that works for most people most of the time and stick with it. -Liam > > -- > Andrew Garrett > [email protected] > http://werdn.us > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaau-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l >
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