Folks we had 40 RSVPs in the system at showtime and 27 showed up.  We did have around 4 members be courteous and update their attendance to No when something came up.  Please understand a few things about the process:

-Ron and I visit each venue on our own time and actually meet with the owner and hash out an agreement including brewery, beer costs, food costs, etc.  This is not unlike buying a used car!

-we tell these owners that we have an RSVP system on the website and as the date gets near we keep them in the loop by email with attendance updates so they know how much beer to have on hand.  This is a huge deal if some of the samples are not draught, like last night.  Bob from Victory brought enough beer for 40 people to taste...just in case we get full participation.

-Dan then makes arrangements to have enough dough unthawed for the food....so you can see how we need to do better on the updating of the website.  These people do not want to upset 40 people that may be new to their restaurant...nor do we want to upset these owners due to a faulty RSVP system.  Ron and I are quickly running out of venues with amazing craft beer selections.  So we may need to duplicate some of these venues again real soon and we want to have a good experience for the owner so he has us back a year later.

-Meetup tells us to have a paypal on the site and everyone must prepay...we would rather not do that.  Plus other meetup groups start to phase out members who constantly RSVP and do not come.  Some beer club members say that other groups have a 3 strikes and your out system.  We would rather not lock people out if they cannot update their RSVP.  The website does give us a way to track no shows so we may have to weigh that option.  Let's all try to do better and update our RSVPs at the last minute.  Some of you guys did send an email thru the site but did not click off your attendance.  Then the number does not change as the site does not recognize an email as an update.  So please actually change your RSVP to "NO" if you want credit for your efforts.  My meetup app on my smartphone is not the best but it does show the RSVPs count quite handily.  Thanks for all of the attendance last night it was a lot of fun.  Glad to see so many new members.  Joe and Ron