Hi everyone,

I hope you're doing well. I wanted to ask if it’s possible to get a refund for our Meetup subscription, which costs around 200 EUR per year. We've had great success with the NixOS Milano meetups over the past year, and they’ve been a key part of growing our community.

Here’s our Meetup page: NixOS Milano Meetup
And our website: NixOS Milano

Given the positive outcomes, I wanted to check if the subscription cost could be reimbursed. Let me know what you think!

cc albertodvp

In reply to @aciceri:nixos.dev

Hi everyone,

I hope you're doing well. I wanted to ask if it’s possible to get a refund for our Meetup subscription, which costs around 200 EUR per year. We've had great success with the NixOS Milano meetups over the past year, and they’ve been a key part of growing our community.

Here’s our Meetup page: NixOS Milano Meetup
And our website: NixOS Milano

Given the positive outcomes, I wanted to check if the subscription cost could be reimbursed. Let me know what you think!

cc albertodvp

I‘d be in favor

(Not affiliated with the Milan group in any way)

Ideally we’d use this occasion as food for thought: how can we build on-ramps for such fruitful activities to eventually use pooled community resources (in this case: an official NixOS meetup account) in order to save costs at scale?

In reply to @lassulus:lassul.us
Yeah a pooled meetup.com account would be nice. But not sure how much we would care about migrating members and AFAIK there is a cap at meetup.com for only 3 different meetups

In reply to @djacu:matrix.org
So meetup has an offering called Meetup Pro where you can create an unlimited number of groups. Looks like it is targeted towards global organizations. I'm not able to find pricing information but looks worth investigating
https://www.meetup.com/meetup-pro/

In reply to @rosscomputerguy:matrix.org
Maybe trialing it first with 3 groups for like a month and if it works out, then we look into the pro option?

In reply to @djacu:matrix.org
What's the goal of the trial?

In reply to @rosscomputerguy:matrix.org
I assume that we're trying to use meetup to make finding groups easier

It would be interesting to see how much of an impact that has.

@zrsk any notion of how different people came to find your meetup? Was it through meetup, word of mouth, official spaces, or something else?

Also 94 members! Nice! :D

In reply to @rosscomputerguy:matrix.org
I assume that we're trying to use meetup to make finding groups easier

It would be interesting to see how much of an impact that has.

zrsk any notion of how different people came to find your meetup? Was it through meetup, word of mouth, official spaces, or something else?

Also 94 members! Nice! :D

In reply to @djacu:matrix.org

It would be interesting to see how much of an impact that has.

@zrsk any notion of how different people came to find your meetup? Was it through meetup, word of mouth, official spaces, or something else?

Also 94 members! Nice! :D

In reply to @albertodvp:matrix.org
During our last meetup (last Saturday), we discussed whether to stop using Meetup. Many mentioned that they originally discovered us through the platform. We don’t have statistically significant data, as attendance varies between 10 and 20 participants, and the group composition changes frequently.

We are currently exploring alternative tools such as Eventbrite and Luma and plan to start tracking engagement to evaluate whether the investment in Meetup is worthwhile. Overall, I'd say word of mouth has been the strongest driver of growth for the Milan community so far

In reply to @rosscomputerguy:matrix.org
Interesting, though this is 1 data point. Which is why I'm thinking a trial thing would be a good way to see with 3 groups.

For comparison, the Zurich group uses meetup primarily for attendance planning. Most visibility is derived from other means.

So to be clear, my underlying reasoning is: how can we help reduce friction and increase wellbeing for local groups? If the lack of a good, affordable online tool for coordination is a bottleneck, there may be multiple ways of addressing that.