MONTHLY DUES payment option required to join group!
PLEASE VOTE FOR YOU BETTER MEETUP FUTURE! Us organizers had to pay Meetup in order to have a group and our members should have to do the same in order to join our group. Let us organizers set the amount which can be even be set to $0 for those that still want to give themselves away for free. ORGANIZERS: Imagine receiving just $3 a month times your # of members per month! Join for $3 which automatically re-occurs every month until you cancel! DONE! Everyone is happy including Meetup.com for retaining us... the organizers!
Bryan Kalentek
shared this idea
We are currently exploring ways to enhance the membership dues experience. Thank you for the support.
503 comments
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Anonymous
commented
I totally agree. If the meetup has an annual membership fee then members must pay in order to RSVP to an event and see event details. Otherwise organizers must chase members and ask over and over for them to pay - this creates a negative atmosphere for the group. This is a very important feature.
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BD
commented
Thank goodness Meetup.com are finally considering this subject. I'm sick and tired of people coming along to events without paying a nominal fee (£1). As Organisers, we have enough to do without chasing our members repeatedly.
I look forward to seeing what Meetup come up with but reduced access to meetup info. for those who never bother to contribute to our group financially would be a start!
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Anonymous
commented
Wow! 500 comments! Since I only have time to read the past 10 comments, my comment below may have been redundant so I apologize.
As an organizer, I want choices/options so Meetup should provide several options on how membership dues are collected (prior or after joining, one time or periodic, etc. etc.) There are many organizers out there and each of us may want/need different things, so more choices the better --- let's solve this problem once and for all :-)My main beef with the current system (lack of mandatory membership due prior to joining a group) is that it allows ghost members to exist. These people never attend the meetup nor participate in any online discussion (despite my introduction page requiring them to do - but of course no enforcement teeth provided by meetup).
I would rather have a meetup group of 10 active members than 1 gazillion ghost members.
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John A.
commented
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you Meetup for finally doing something about this huge problem for us organizers! Meetup will be loved once again!
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Brian Hudson
commented
Carol: The beauty of being the Organizer is that YOU decide how the group is run and what it's called. If they don't like it, tell them thanks for their participation and encourage them to organize their own group the way they see fit!
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Carol
commented
First...I think the options should be there for each organizer to set "HOW" they want to organize their group...automatic, monthly, yearly on a date the organizer chooses, no fees...but this should be the organizers choice...no one else's.
Second...put the original colors back in the website. I have lost a few people because of the change to "white". Let the organizers have that choice too. I loved our site "before". Now it is just a step higher than Facebook sites, which are free.
Third...Instead of having a section where a bunch of "other" meetup sites are, etc...delete that...and, in it's place set that up to be a "letter" from the organizer to members so I can post rather than having to send emails all the time.
Fourth...Give us back our "blogging" ability. We used to be able to do that on the front web page. Now, we just go to Facebook and set up a site there. I still like my site, but I feel that instead of improving anything for "us", we are constantly having things taken away.
Fifth...A couple questions I've been asking and never getting good answers: 1) are we a club or a group? 2) a non-profit club? 3) Do we need to put all the money we take in from membership dues back into the club and have a financial report available to members on a monthly basis? 4) Iam having some members tell me what they think I should do and if I don't do what they think, then they tell me that I don't know how to run the group. They say that my meetup is a "normal club" and I should have a membership voted in president, VP, treasurer, etc. I need answers! -
Bonnie
commented
Great idea.... and it's under review! A post similar to this one made it to the top 5 ideas and is now marked as 'under review'!
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Bonnie
commented
People pay $7+ dollars to see a movie, before they see it, so I don't understand the logic of the comment beneath this one. The beauty of this idea is the accountability it will create! Meetups are about to get better and better and kudos to the admin for 'exploring ways to enhance the membership experience.' We will be able to love Meetup again when they make this much needed improvement happen!
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Dev
commented
Organizers choose to own Meetups, so should also choose to pay the fees. Soliciting during events is allowed, but should not be mandated. It defeats the purpose of most Meetups, to entice those who are looking to come on in. A mandated cost before even understanding if this is the group for them would be prohibitive.
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Andy
commented
Same here - cant run a club on meetup when there is no difference between people who pay and people who dont.
There should be some details visible but option to deny functionality without payment of membership dues. -
Andy
commented
No way I can run a club of 250 people without proper membership dues system that allows only paid up members to do things like RSVP, access details. But viewing event titles and limited details is needed to encourage people to join. I use meetup only for advertising our group as there is no proper controls for paid membership. It seems the meetup organizer is left to manual chase people , delete, check dues lists and compare - a nightmare system at the moment. How can I enforce that with 900 people on my meetup group - ridiculous. I cannot switch our club to meetup until it has a proper membership access system.
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Andy
commented
As Maria just said... for some people yearly or 1/2 year dues are better. The group organiser should be able to set the membership length of time (1 month, x months, x years).
After paid membership term expires they should lose some functions. I just posted a topic about access control for membership dues - set on or off for RSVP, view meeting time and place, contact details.
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Maria
commented
I charge $10 annually & this would be most beneficial. If they have not paid the month the dues were due they can't RSVP for an event w/ a note saying " you can't RSVP until your dues have been paid" or something of the like. My dues cover my organizer fees nothing more. And......if I happen to have some left over I put the money back into my group.
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Tammy
commented
We should all tell our fellow meetup friends to vote on this and make it #1!!!!!!!!!!!! If I could get just $2 a month from each member, I could quit my job and make this my living, as I'm sure a lot of you could, too!
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Stephanie DePoma
commented
I had no fees my first year so that I could draw attention to my site. In the second year I instituted a 5.00 fee for new members only. If they paid once they did not have to pay again after that. That worked great, but for whatever reason this third year we have attracted so many non-payers I had to institute a 5.00 annual fee for all members. Of course I have only received that from about 35 people which barely covered my Organizer fees. There needs to be a way for us to make the dues mandatory before a member can join. Once they join if they don't pay immediately you then have to hound them at meetups to ask for your payment. If they still put you off you either have to delete them from the group one at a time or e-mail each of those people one at a time.
If you are not going to give us the option to have it set up so that they have to pay before joining (the same as we do as organizers), then you need to have a better system for us to e-mail just the nonpayers in one group e-mail so that we can then hound them weekly or monthly to pay their dues, as well as an option for us to "mass delete" where we can choose just the nonpayers who have been in the group for 60 days or more.
In addition, there should be a way to mass e-mail based on Gender or member location. For example, if I have an event happening in a particular city, it would be beneficial for me to send out an e-mail specifically to the members who live in that area to let them know something is coming up in their part of town. Ditto for events that might be geared more towards just the ladies (bachelorette or ladies night out) or specifically for guys (bachelor party), etc.
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Tammy
commented
I voted on this a long time ago and i can't believe there are so many votes now, yet they still haven't done anything! A lot of great comments I agree with 100%!
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Carol
commented
Problem I have is I have some people ask what the dues are (annual is what we have...once a year now on a set date)...and I tell them they can't come to a meeting unless they pay up...and they come anyway. So, what am I to do? Throw them out? We have a photo club with a lot of equipment, videos, etc. So, to charge $1 is a bit crazy. We charge $30/year...and most feel that is extremely reasonable. I always get a few "what do you do with "my" money? Cost me to rent space for meetings, equipment, etc., etc., etc. I don't think there is any one answer for everyone. I think we should be able to set the amoiunt individually.
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T.
commented
At first I wasn't down with this (even though I have the same issues with non-paying members), but heck, $1 a month isn't asking for much. But I think having a set-up where only paid members can RSVP and see location details would be just as useful.
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Chris Jackson
commented
This is not a democracy. Meetup HQ will implement this feature only if they see value in it for themselves and clearly they don't. I do wish they would be more honest about this process and just reject the idea quickly rather than let it sit here for years... You can lead a horse to water...
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jimmy
commented
Over 700 votes for this and no reply from MeetUp HQ . They just don't care. There must be over 10 different posting asking meetup to help organizers manage getting dues from members but they never help us. Funny how they have that in place for themselves to get their payment automatically form the Organizers but not for us to get it from our members. If anyone knows of another service like meetup, and they are happy with, please let me know, because I would love to take my business elsewhere.
