To all Shut Up & Write! Silicon Valley Members,

We just had a member violate our policies by setting up a July 18 meetup not authorized by our group. It has been cancelled.

I sent them an email advising them of their inappropriate user name when they joined a few days ago. They ignored it. I doubt their event was legitimate.

I apologize because I should have deleted their membership immediately, and then you wouldn't have been harassed in this way.

I have also changed our website rules so that although any member can suggest a meetup and set up a meetup page, only Organizers or Co-Organizers can trigger the announcement of the meetup to our full membership list. This should guard against this kind of thing in the future.

I want all our members to know that we value your privacy, and we take every measure to keep people from using our website for solicitations and spam messages. Heaven knows, you get enough emails from us as it is.

My humblest apology,

Jim Gay, Co-Organizer, Shut Up & Write! Silicon Valley