Should we continue advertizing ResBazAZ on Meetup.com?

[julianpistorius]

Currently we advertize weekly events on Meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/ResBazAZ/

There are some downsides to using Meetup:

1. It takes quite a bit of effort to respond to, and approve or decline membership requests to the Meetup group ¹
2. Most of the folks who find us through Meetup seem to be looking for more software engineering-focused groups, don't end up coming to our events (or only show up once and never again), and very often don't even live in Tucson
3. Almost nobody actually uses Meetup.com to RSVP for our events
4. It costs money (about $200 per year) ²
5. It's a closed platform where we don't control our data
6. (Add a comment below if you can think of other good reasons to leave Meetup)

Upsides of Meetup:

1. Reach a much wider audience than just people we find through the UArizona network
2. Good event and group management tools (which we don't currently leverage effectively)
3. (Add a comment below if you can think of other good reasons to stay on Meetup)

Please weigh in below with your votes & comments. I'm especially interested to hear from members who found us through Meetup.

Footnotes

1. We could remove the approval step for new members and make the group entirely open ↩

2. I've been paying this personally for most of the last seven years - and I haven't minded - but maybe we could ask for donations or find sponsorship going forward? ↩

[julianpistorius]

An idea from Brandon to use Meetup better: Post photos and update real attendance numbers to the events after the fact.