[plug] meetup.com, was Re: What's on in October: Wednesday, Sunday meetings

[Nick Bannon]

Hey, Steve! Nannup, you say..? We've always been about the whole of WA
here, our Secretary is in Geraldton, I'm from Esperance, we've had other
members attending online or coming to visit from Collie and further.
...but also "PLUG" is too good an acronym to give up lightly! :)

I think you've got two questions there:
1. What does meetup.com do? (for PLUG)
2. Where's PLUG at with online/hybrid/video streaming/AV recording meetings?

Maybe someone else can help give an update about the second one: we do
have a lot of online meetings, but it also needs technical work and
a healthy in-person presence to keep it going. In collaboration with the
UCC of UWA we've been sharing a bigbluebutton.org instance at:
https://meetings.ucc.asn.au/b/plug
...tonight in the UWA venue is going to be a bit of a challenge, but
stop by and see if we're running, partially, between 18:00 and 20:00.

For the first one: yes, meetup.com is a bunch of marketing pap that we use
to get the word out about our events and have a RSVP page. We do get a steady
trickle of new members finding us there, so it's probably still worthwhile.
There's no need for our members to pay for "Meetup+", PLUG is paying its
share of an organiser "Community essentials" subscription.

Our main calendar is on our own website and our main discussion forum
is right here on the mailing list. There's Internet chat, too. Joining
meetup or the mailing list is not actually financially joining PLUG,
that's over here:
https://www.plug.org.au/membership/

We're sharing the costs of meetup.com with the Perth Artifactory, but
I'd also like to reach out again to https://linuxvictoria.org/contact/
and see if we can share some infrastructure. LUV is also using meetup.com and
bigbluebutton.org and I saw some of their team earlier this year.

Steve - maybe you could help get us back in touch with LUV? They're
having regular online and regional? events, there's upcoming Tuesday
evening Town Hall and "LAIT" chats:
- https://www.meetup.com/linux-users-of-victoria/events/311084565
- https://www.meetup.com/linux-users-of-victoria/events/311283712
- https://linuxvictoria.org/posts/lait-night-chat-linux-and-ai
- https://electronworkshop.com.au/goto/venue/

Nick, PLUG Vice-Chair 2025.
0419 957 011

On Wed, Oct 08, 2025 at 09:32:55AM +0800, Steve Boak wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> I've signed up to Meetup in the hope that it's a streaming service that I
> can use to join the talk, but it's not very clear on the Meetup website if
> this is the case. Lots of marketing pap about 'social media platform
> dedicated to fostering human connections' and 'engage with your local
> community in a way that leads to meaningful, real-life connections'.
> 
> But what does it do?
> 
> Can someone enlighten me please?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Steve
> -- 
> Steve Boak, VK6HSB
> 0411 255 789
> P.O. Box 240, Nannup, WA 6275

-- 
   Nick Bannon   | "I made this letter longer than usual because
nick-sig at rcpt.to | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal