Starting a Group

[riftara]

Anyone here run a group locally, either one for awareness or one for fellowship?

I will be starting a UUPA group here in the next few weeks/months and I wanted to see if anyone had some insight

[SchrodingersCat]

I briefly ran a meet-up group for poly people in my city. There's one for my province, but it's mostly out of the other city.

It had a really good turnout for the first couple meetings, then it started to die off. Eventually I abandoned it too and I don't know where it ended up after that.

Local groups depend a lot on the size of your city and the amount of interest. You can always try it and see where it goes, but make sure you understand that you might spend a lot of time sitting alone waiting for people to show up. Bring a book.

[nycindie]

Riftara, what sort of things are you planning for your group? Just discussions or activities/outings or...??? And SC, what was yours about? I ask because I have thought about starting a group in NYC but only because the big, popular, existing poly group that meets here is too kink-focused for me. And I know that others have felt that way but I'm not sure what sort of things to organize for a non-kink or non-sex-focused group. And I am wondering if there would be enough interest if I started one with a specific focus or activity to it. Not sure if my post is making sense.

[NovemberRain]

I don't organize our local group, but I participate.

It's organized through meetup, but originally it was a mailing list. I found it through the poly events all over link that redpepper has in her sig line. It's also a huge, secret facebook group. The meetup is a once a month meeting a local coffeehouse, they have a room off the main place. We all get a drink and some get a snack, and the room is free. The first hour is a discussion. Sometime they pick a topic; the last time they had cards so peeps could write questions, and the questions get read and anyone with input can speak. Then they break for drink refresh, potty breaks, and coming back is just informal discussion amongst anyone in the room. It's nice for those who are shy, they can just be in the room and hear discussion without being put on the spot; then if they like, they can talk one-on-one to folks in the social time. Those who dislike formal discussions can come late, or politely wait for social time. Frequently there are lots of kids on laps or underfoot. This last time there were no kids, but that was the first meet I'd been to with no kids.

There are some passionate gamers, and they've organized a once a month poly game night, which is just like any other game night, but poly peeps show up for that.

There's a core group, but every meet always has noobs. Sometimes they keep showing up (like me).

[NovemberRain]

nycindie, it made sense to me....

[riftara]

since this will be a awareness group and a support group, I want to have monthly discussions and q and a time, plus socializing after (potlucks likely).

My first meeting will be about what is poly, to get hte church members involved,then I want to talk about things like communication and things like that, or whatever else the group wants to discuss.

I plan to repeat the what is poly discussion every 6 months or so for new people.