Meetup starter kit: Document advice on starting a meetup

[erickt]

We should start documenting our advice how to organize a Rust-related meetup. @wifelette has a nice writeup about starting a user group here for reference.

[skade]

That's an interesting reference, although it is heavily biased towards meetups with a speaker, which isn't necessary - quite the contrary. Do you mind if I assign to me?

[erickt]

@skade: You need to accept the invite to the team first :)

[skade]

I haven't received a notification...

On 21 Mar 2016, at 00:15, Erick Tryzelaar notifications@github.com wrote:

@skade: You need to accept the invite to the team first :)

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub

[skade]

Actually, I did. Just way back. Ignore the noise :).

On 21 Mar 2016, at 09:32, Florian Gilcher florian.gilcher@asquera.de wrote:

I haven't received a notification...

On 21 Mar 2016, at 00:15, Erick Tryzelaar notifications@github.com wrote:

@skade: You need to accept the invite to the team first :)

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub

[erickt]

@skade: assigned!

[erickt]

Some topics to cover:

• How to find a meetup space
• How to attract attendees
• How to attract speakers
• How to organize events when you can't find speakers

[huonw]

As an amateur meet-up organiser, something like this would've been really helpful and would probably still be quite helpful. I've been lucky enough to find someone to help me who has reliable access to a free meetup space + food etc., but that was through no fault of my own (they approached me).

Other things that may be helpful are things like:

• Suggestions about how to structure the event on the night, e.g. in Sydney, we've found that leaving 5-10 minutes between talks gives a more relaxed feel and gives people time to get up and get another drink or some more food etc.
• An easy way to make signs (there could be premade ones like <logo> Rust Meetup in a variety of languages, but it would be good to be able to change the text manually too)
• A suggested code of conduct
• Checklists for different sorts of events, e.g. it's easy to forget to about power for a hack-night.

[pnkfelix]

Regarding the "how to organize events when you can't find speakers", I think the Rust-Paris meetup has been relatively successful when we don't have a full set of presentations employing the Open Spaces format to divide the audience into focused subgroup discussions (after the presentations, if any, are over).

• The heart of the Open Spaces format is the idea of letting the audience, as in the people who showed up, dynamically determine the set of topics at the outset of the meetup. I have participants nominated topics by writing them on post-it notes, then we put the post-its on a central board where every attendee can vote for as many of the post-its as they want. (But no more than one vote per (post-it x person).)

One big benefit to this structure, from my POV, is that dividing into subgroups means that we can always handle a dedicated "tutorial" subgroup, where someone (often me) delivers a 2 to 3 hour presentation on Rust, with exercises hosted on play.rust-lang.org mixed in to keep things interactive. (The reason this is important is that I frequently see the audience divided into veterans and first-timers, and the first-timers are often there explicitly seeking to learn more about programming in Rust.)

[Manishearth]

For smaller events without speakers Iv

[Manishearth]

On that same topic: For smaller events without speakers aside from the meetup organizer (me) I've found that holding a very-interactive talk where people are highly encouraged to interrupt and derail the speaker is quite fun and makes for an enjoyable meetup. It starts off as a talk, and eventually becomes a sharing of Rust-related experiences and information, where impromptu lightning talk-esque situations emerge. It's a great way to manufacture speakers (the audience ) where there aren't any.

This might not be a sustainable model, though.

[pnkfelix]

@Manishearth did you mean to close this?

[Manishearth]

Nope, on phone, fat-fingered it probably.

[carols10cents]

Virtual:

• Link to https://github.com/ctjhoa/rust-learning/ that has some slides to use for intro talks, learning resources to use during meetups
• Ideas for activities to do during meetups
• Instructions on getting your event on the community calendar and your group on https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/user-groups.html

Physical:

• Stickers

[carols10cents]

@skade says:

• A guide on how to do outreach and find people
• Info on how to keep you group cool and likeable

[carols10cents]

@locks gave me these links as examples that we can steal from:

• http://emberjs.com/community/meetups/
• http://emberjs.com/community/meetups-getting-started/
• http://emberjs.com/meetup-assets/

[skade]

I got in touch with Joe Nash at Mozfest, who runs Githubs University education program. They were currently searching for someone to facilitate a course about running Meetups. The resulting material will be open to everyone (also to republish) and they will be giving editorial support.