tips for new meetup organizers?

[SomeGirl]

Maybe someone can give me a heads up on this whole Meetup thing. I'm completely new to politics and to meetup. But I started my own meetup last week after finding that the closest one to me was a good hour+ drive.

As of today, I have 4 other local members that have joined. I haven't scheduled a meetup yet, because frankly, I don't know what should be done at one.

Obviously every other group had to start somewhere, but I haven't seen any tips anywhere. Maybe someone here can help us out. The only materials I have at this point are some tshirts and a pack of bumper stickers that I bought at a fair a few hours from here. So where do we start? What do we do at the first meetup?


Thanks! :)

[Rivington Essex]

Welcome to the Ron Paul campaign.

[LarryWhite]

Email the members, see how far away everone is, and start planning a first meeting. I did our first meeting in a coffee shop, it works with either 4 or 5 or 10 or 15, and it's free. Start off asking the members what they want to do, if you don't get a response, figure out what you want to spend your time doing, then set it up and let everyone join in if they want to.

At the 'get involved' section of ronpaul2008.com there is a meetup organizer form where you can give the campaign your contact info and order slim jim fliers and bumper stickers.

Events depend on how much participation you get and the area you are in.

If you're in a college town, you want to focus on campus events, concerts, festivals, and block parties. If you're in a 9 to 5 town, maybe sign waiving at Rush hour traffic.

County fairs and festivals offer free people. I stood at one last weekend with one other person and we handed out over 500 fliers, just standing there with a sign offering them to people walking by.

[ClockwiseSpark]

I think a good start would be to get everyones names, e-mails and numbers at your first meeting. National says they'd like a hard copy of this for each state.

Make sure everyone is talking about Dr. Paul to thier friends and associates. Use every contact list you have for this.

Contact other meetup organizers near you and combine your resouces.

Other then that I think just follow suit with the events that go on around the country.

[Spirit of '76]

Also, look to get at least one or two of your members to get involved in the local (county, state, etc.) GOP clubs. Ask for volunteers. Heck some may already be involved.

We've got to start moving past the just-a-meetup phase and into the reclaiming-the-Republican-Party-from-the-inside phase.

[Elwar]

Make business cards with information on how to join your meetup. Hand them out to anyone interested in Ron Paul.

[ghemminger]

test

[Rivington Essex]

And a very successful Meetup organizer from San Antonio posted this thread.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=16521

Just a bunch of ideas and ways to segment the market.

And what town are you in. Post a thread ... anybody know people in xyz. There are about 500 people on this board every day. We might be able to jump start your group.

[sylvania]

If you haven't already been to the site below, it offers videos showcasing what other Ron Paul meetups have done:

http://ronpaulmeetupvideos.com/

Thank you for just jumping in and taking action.

[SomeGirl]

Thanks for the suggestions! Lots of good ideas in that one thread. I guess we should have a meeting and pool funds to buy sign making materials right off the bat.

The meetup is in a mostly rural area with a handful of old coal mining towns in PA. We have 9 members, but only 4 are actually local. Still, for a town of 6000, 4 in the first week isn't bad. I printed out a few of those meetup tear off things and will be posting them in some stores tomorrow.

[Spirit of '76]

The meetup is in a mostly rural area with a handful of old coal mining towns in PA. We have 9 members, but only 4 are actually local.


In that case, please contact Tom Kawczynski of the Pittsburgh group. They are very active, and working on state-wide meetup coordination efforts. He can definitely help you get the ball rolling.

You can contact him through the forum. Here is his profile:
http://ronpaulforums.com/member.php?u=392

You can also find him through meetup.com:
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/97/members/4226374/

They also have a separate website set up:
http://www.hometownpaul.com/

I'd suggest joining the Pittsburgh and Harrisburg meetups so that you can get the alerts and info they send out.

What part of PA are you in? If it's SW PA, you might also want to coordinate with the folks in Morgantown, WV.