from Hacker News

How to run a Meetup – Lessons learned running React Vienna for a year

by nik-graf on 11/22/16, 1:04 PM with 17 comments

  • by musha68k on 11/22/16, 5:11 PM

    I sneaked into ReactVienna for the first time in mid 2015 and it has been the most inclusive and lively meetup I've experienced to date.

    I remember well, how on a correlating (free) workshop Nik Graf and Andrey Okonetchnikov in particular were getting out of their way to teach us on how to go about that crazy webpack/react/redux development stack.

    The folks from ReactVienna are also very well connected, so we had the best very special meetups this October - amazing talks featuring Sean Grove, Richard Feldman and David Nolen talking about what's new regarding Reason, Elm and ClojureScript respectively.

    I've been wanting to emigrate from Austria ever since university but the current vibes here in Vienna do make me feel like wanting to stay in the EU for the first time in a long time.

    Of course, contributing to that is the fact that there have been other great meetups happening regularly at Sektor5 (super welcoming co-working place) over the last couple of years: viennajs, viennarb and cljvie only to name a few that interest me.

    As pointed out in the article - ReactVienna and all the other meetups are collaborative efforts and I'd like to applaud the teams - thanks for showing up, Vienna has become so much more interesting thanks to you <3

  • by herge on 11/22/16, 2:37 PM

    The key to a meet up or a community's longevity is consistency. If you can consistently schedule events like the second Monday of every month or every two months, people can remember that and plan around those events, as opposed to waiting for an announcement.

    Also, a meet up does not have to be long. A couple of presentations for a total of a hour is a fine excuse to meet at the bar afterwards and talk technology. Finding speakers for events is hard, so even alternating between 'talk/presentation' nights and just bar nights can work, especially to keep a 'every month' rhythm going.

  • by olegp on 11/22/16, 5:33 PM

    That's a good and concise summary. If you're considering running a meetup but want more info before diving in at the deep end, check out this series of blog posts I've started writing on the topic:

    https://blog.toughbyte.com/what-is-a-meetup-and-why-should-i...

    The blog series is still ongoing, but it is based on a talk I gave earlier this year, which you can check out here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNZTLcutqKk

    PS. If you're looking for a platform geared towards technical meetups, take a look at Meetabit which we're working on at Toughbyte: https://meetabit.com/ - your feedback would be really appreciated. We're currently available in only a few cities, but would be happy to add more cities if there's enough interest.

  • by yeraydarias on 11/22/16, 1:44 PM

    I totally agree with the author on the importance of the motivation, though in my experience money as a motivation in the creation of a local group or meetup is not a very good idea. Not profitable or easy to get money at least.

    I prefer to focus on side benefits like community improvement, a point of meeting for professionals and so on.

  • by lowglow on 11/22/16, 4:33 PM

    I know meet-up organizers and members are going to want to post about their meet-ups here! Reply back with a meet-up and what is cool about it, we can get a list going.