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This makes me so glad that I moved LeedsJS off of Meetup. They have such hostility for community groups and their members. When I left, they wanted $95 for 6 months. To keep the events free (they always will be) it would cost us about $120 a MONTH! That's a 657% increase! dabit3/1183830772375085056Permalink On twitter.com
♻️ 10 Retweets ❤️ 31 Favorites Mood +5 🙂
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I used to cover the Meetup costs myself, because it was difficult to charge it to a sponsor, this change would have made the event not viable if we'd stuck with Meetup.Permalink On twitter.com
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So $120 at the moment is about £95. Our running costs are currently about £120 a month, as the food is the only thing that we need to pay for. Our venue is free, the website is hosted on Netlify's free tier, the domain is covered by me (I'm happy to absorb that small cost).Permalink On twitter.com
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Let's be clear, Meetup is trying to abuse the monopoly they have on community groups. Communities rely on them because it's their route for discovery and communication.Permalink On twitter.com
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So what can your groups do? Firstly, start a mailing list so that you can communicate with your members. We use MailChimp at LeedsJS, but there are other providers with good free tiers.Permalink On twitter.com
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Then, you need some sort of event page and attendee counting/limiting system. Some examples:Permalink On twitter.com
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Eventbrite.com Free for free events, you get a landing page, can set the amount of tickets you want to release.Permalink On twitter.com
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ti.to Again, free for free events, you also get a page you can put details on, and can set a limit. We use it for LeedsJS (just fot tickets) and because of this, I know that they also have an API and embeddable widgets so you can put them in a website.Permalink On twitter.com
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Your own website! Using something like Netlify or github pages, you can host a static website for free. Combine this with a ticketing system like Tito or Eventbrite, and you have your own platform.On twitter.com
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I believe there are other, full alternatives to Meetup, but I've not used them. But I also believe in ownership of your group, and usually relying on a 3rd party for everything means that they also have a lot of ownership.Permalink On twitter.com
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Alf.io was suggested by myriamjessier It looks to be a self-hosted system based on Java. myriamjessier/1184032606536511489?s=19Permalink On twitter.com