We are having issues with members RSVPing "yes" to multiple meetups going on at the exact same time. Until cloning is perfected, no one can be in two places at once! Please make it so if someone has RSVPd to something, that time is blocked off. So if they try to RSVP to something else that conflicts with that time (or at least part of that time range if an end time is given), it will block them and tell them they are already signed up for something else at that time. I find members often RSVP to one event, and then when another event is posted at the same time they like better, they'll RSVP to that one WITHOUT removing themselves from the first one. This will force them to do that and to choose one or the other! Thanks.

I saw a lot of topics about allowing for summary reports for late cancels. But those would only be available to head organizers who run the meetup. The feature I'm proposing would be automatic and instant.
I think there could be a time frame set (e.g. 2 hours before a meetup), and if someone cancels within that time frame, they are automatically bounced to No Show. Then when the event host/organizer reviews the event later, they will know who cancelled last minute. After they've dealt with those names, they can start marking their actual No Shows (i.e. who were still Attending but failed to show up).
This would reduce the time and energy organizers would need to cross reference different lists to figure out who cancelled last minute and who No Show'd. If members know it's an automated process, it may change their behaviour.

As an Organizer I collect dues from my members to keep the group going. About half pay, and half don't, so every month I have to go through and kick folks out the group, which can be very unpleasant (but it's not fair that some pay and carry the group while others aren't pitching in).

My suggestion is to have some sort of feature where a member can be marked as "paid" or "unpaid" by the meetup system, and those marked as "unpaid" are not able to RSVP to meetups or see location details. They're still within the group, they just can't fully engage until they get their dues in. This would help organizers not have to keep track of every single person who hasn't paid and keep removing people. With this new system, once a member gets tired of not being able to join in the meetups, they're either leave the group or pay their dues....it would essentially make members self-regulate.

The problem with large meetup groups is that when a new event is announced people jump on the event just to have the possibility of going should nothing better go on - and often enough they find something better going on a day or two before the event and cancel when it is too late for someone to replace them.

My suggestion is to create a member reliability waiting list. People who are more reliable would get the space that frees up before someone who is less reliable.

When you cancel an RSVP the closer to the event date the greater the risk of obtaining a poor reliability rating. This would normally work when there is a waiting list.

If you cancel more than a week prior to the event no points against your reliability rating.

If you cancel more than 96 hours (four days) prior to the event only one point against your reliability rating.

If you cancel more than 48 hours (two days) prior to to the event only two points against your reliability rating.

If you cancel more than 24 hours (one day) prior to to the event only three points against your reliability rating.

If you cancel within 24 hours before the event then four points would go against your reliability rating.

If you cancel after an event has started or you don't show then six points would go against your reliability rating.

Members would have a default number of points and for each event you attend your reliability would increase by one point.

Event schedulers should also have the ability to enable the reliability rating functionality even when there is no waiting list for those situations when a reservation is required.

The purpose for this post is because we are looking to implement the same kind of automatic transaction that Meetup HQ uses to take Fees from Organizers bank account or credit cards. HQ sees the benefit in automatic transactions and so do we. By allowing organizers to have this type of option, it allows for Groups to have more flexibility to be able to run a more efficient meetup group with dues implementation. This is appealing to current and future organizers, entrepreneurs, and others who are volunteering their time to provide commond interest of events.

Membership dues through PayPal, Amazon or through personally taking monthly dues from each member works for the smaller groups because it is easier to have accountability.

Current Membership dues System Issue:

•Not all the members will have a PayPal or Amazon account.
•There is many issues when members manually having to make a payment through their PayPal or Amazon, and some chooses not to..
•Members are human and they can forget to make a payment.
•Not automatically withdrawn from the member’s bank account or credit card, which burdens organizers who have over 100 members to track on the paid and not paid list.
•No way for the current system to block a member who has not made payment from seeing future events and location or content of the group.
•The current system is mainly good for charging for events not membership dues.

Pros of Automatic Membership due withdraws:

•Happier organizers who are taking dues from their members
•This may turn more members into organizers because they can potentially generate revenue through their meetup groups to host better events.

Suggestions:

•Option to automatically withdraw membership dues from bank or credit card account should be granted to Groups with over 100 members.

I’m sure Meetup HQ understands why it is important to have a system that automatically withdraws dues from members account as they have implement the same system on the organizers. There are many benefits that comes from having this type of system. Please work with your IT guys to help make this suggestion a reality.

To all Organizers, Lets make this happen. Think about the possibility that could come from this. Less headaches, better events, more active members because they know they are paying for this group and there is value. Vote for this.

Successfully,
Bono Stewart, Organizer
Midtown After 5, OKC

It was so great to be able to scroll down old events and see people's feedback/review of the event right there on the main page, as opposed to below as a general comment in the comment thread. Also, I just discovered that when people RSVP their profile responses show up. It was SO MUCH BETTER when they could post something helpful and critical with their RSVP that would show up there instead, such as "Can drive", "have group pass to park", etc. I don't get what the value is in seeing the person's first responses to their profile questions in the RSVP box. PLEASE GO BACK...IT WAS AWESOME THE WAY IT WAS!!! :-)

We run our meetup a little differently. We encourage all of our members to post events/trips (schedule a new meetup). The current Meetup gets most of the way there - and allows us to set that any member can schedule a new meetup, but falls a little short as an organizer has to go and make them an event host for their own event - so they can have access to the RSVP setting for their own event.

The quick mod would be an Admin setting under the Group Settings -> Basics screen, to select whether to automatically set the person who schedules a new meetup to be set as the Event Host for that meetup; or, at least give them access to the RSVP settings.

Ideally, there would also be a setting to whether the Event Host should have access to the "Charging for this Meetup" section (which is the only very sensitive section, IMHO.)

If you are already subscribed to a few groups then the most important thing to the user is keeping up with all the Events that are coming up in those Groups.

Thus it would make sense that on the personal home page the main, central thing should be all the upcoming events. Instead on the current home page the largest section of the page is devoted to some vaguely related group suggestions.

The upcoming events for subscribed groups is squeezed in on the right under the calender and only shows the next weeks events.

To get a good overview of all the things coming up for the next month I need to check every individual group page. Its so annoying.

I really don't care about these group suggestions, they are the same ones I"ve already considered and decided against. I am however concerned that in two or three weeks time there is an event on for a group that I am already subscribed to. That should be the key thing on the homepage.

When searching for a specific meetup to join, one may find that no local meetup exists that meets his or her needs. For instance, I am looking for a biking meetup in my town but one does not exist. I don't feel qualified to start one on my own and I am sure there are others out there who feel the same. If there was a "Wants" button to show "john doe Wants a cycling meetup in smallville" along with other member wants, perhaps a willing qualified member would see the need and create the meetup. OR all the Wanters could decide to get together and fill the need themselves.

Consider color coordinating Banner and Headlines on the New Coat Of Paint palette. On the New Coat of Paint color palette, the color chosen for the banner also seems to determine the color of the stripe above the navigation bar and the color of the featured meetup flags. I am proposing that the banner color also be displayed on all Headlines. Headlines are currently displayed in black and they are not very attractive. If the Banner color chosen would also include determining the color of all headlines, our web pages would not only be more aesthetically pleasing to the eye but would show more color scheme continuity from web page to web page.

Thank you.

For use when choosing a meetup that has had events in your area, the system should display locations for all or all recent events on a map. This could be done in various ways...

1) It could display each actual address as a pushpin. This would not be ideal because repeat events would be on top of each other and not represented properly, and it would potentially expose exact addresses that should be kept confidential.

2) A "heat map" overlay like what padmapper.com does with walkscores and crimescores. Areas with more events would be red. Areas with fewer events would be blue and those in the middle would be a shade in between.

3) A circle plot. Areas with more past events would be represented with large circles. Those with fewer events would be smaller circles.

In options 2 and 3, the data points would represent event counts in a particular geographical square and would be centered on the center of the square.