My main question for you: How would you discuss the point from a friend new to EA: “Nothing was practically accomplished at the meeting. Ideas were discussed.”
I would encourage the friend to take a longer-term view to see the value in discussing ideas.
I would also encourage the friend to try out doing the direct-work meetup concept. I suspect there are good reasons why that style meetup is not popular, but would be delighted to see them pioneer it successfully.
I would encourage the friend to take a longer-term view to see the value in discussing ideas.
I would also encourage the friend to try out doing the direct-work meetup concept. I suspect there are good reasons why that style meetup is not popular, but would be delighted to see them pioneer it successfully.
The following EA Forum post may be relevant to you. I’m not sure how Madison vs Harvard differ, though I suspect they are both more similar to each other than they are to the contract-work-and-donate model of an EA meetup you are conceptualizing: http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1nh/heuristics_from_running_harvard_and_oxford_ea/
Some value I see in the social discussion style EA meetups I am familiar with (I co-organize EA Austin and have been to Chicago a couple times):
Prevent value drift through facilitating the development of friendships and closer ties between community members
Inform EA community members about new ideas which they can then go home and read further about online (high fidelity learning)
Have more personalized discussions about career planning than is easy/typical in online EA discussions