Have you had any problems with your meetup becoming too insular?
I live in Berkeley, and I’m missing the Boston meetups, which is weird because the Bay Area is a much bigger EA hub. But the meetups here are basically 100% people from the rationality community, which means whenever I go it’s the same people talking about the same stuff, and if I bring new people, they mostly get bored if they’re not super-compatible with the rationalist community (which includes lots of people for various reasons).
Would love any advice you/others have about ways to deal with this.
I have not had much of this problem think we had this problem a little bit before it was on Meetup. I think we have slightly more insular groups now that meetings are more regular. Based in part on this experience, the advice I would give would be:
• Advertise more (be on Meetup etc)
• Have less frequent but bigger events rather than more frequent smaller events. At bigger events people can find people they get on with and the regulars can sit in the corner doing regular talk. Also regulars will come more frequently so bigger events will dilute the numbers of regulars somewhat.
• Actively encourage people to be more welcoming to new folk.
• You could split up the events into an event for regulars and and event for new folk. I have never done this but it could be worth trying and if you do this let me know how it goes!
Great writeup, thanks!
Have you had any problems with your meetup becoming too insular?
I live in Berkeley, and I’m missing the Boston meetups, which is weird because the Bay Area is a much bigger EA hub. But the meetups here are basically 100% people from the rationality community, which means whenever I go it’s the same people talking about the same stuff, and if I bring new people, they mostly get bored if they’re not super-compatible with the rationalist community (which includes lots of people for various reasons).
Would love any advice you/others have about ways to deal with this.
I have not had much of this problem think we had this problem a little bit before it was on Meetup. I think we have slightly more insular groups now that meetings are more regular. Based in part on this experience, the advice I would give would be:
• Advertise more (be on Meetup etc)
• Have less frequent but bigger events rather than more frequent smaller events. At bigger events people can find people they get on with and the regulars can sit in the corner doing regular talk. Also regulars will come more frequently so bigger events will dilute the numbers of regulars somewhat.
• Actively encourage people to be more welcoming to new folk.
• You could split up the events into an event for regulars and and event for new folk. I have never done this but it could be worth trying and if you do this let me know how it goes!