Announcing Meetup Alliance!

Well, part of the confusion for me is terminology. I guess this: http://www.meetupalli... is a whole mapful of meetups which, collectively, are called "an alliance". Right? I am still trying to understand whether we start alliances (like, say, one for all the RP groups in my state) on that page, or whether the whole page is one (nationwide/worldwide) alliance. If the latter, does that mean that there is just the one global alliance for all RP meetups, until the public release?

Regardless of the above paragraph, I'm still confused as to why I had trouble "getting in" when I tried to do so Saturday, leading to one of my group members registering my group rather than me having been the one to do it. Hopefully that won't make any difference; if it does, I trust we can straighten everything out if we do hit any snags.

For the record, that was the page I was already working with on Saturday, when I was initially trying to put my group into an Alliance. My trouble had nothing to do with not finding that page. "Something" just wouldn't work properly (or I didn't realize how to make it work) after that point.

Well, part of the confusion for me is terminology. I guess this: http://www.meetupalli... is a whole mapful of meetups which, collectively, are called "an alliance". Right? I am still trying to understand whether we start alliances (like, say, one for all the RP groups in my state) on that page, or whether the whole page is one (nationwide/worldwide) alliance. If the latter, does that mean that there is just the one global alliance for all RP meetups, until the public release?

Jaime brings up a good question. If you have a Ron Paul alliance, then it would be ideal to also have a sub section which uses locality as the determining factor. Meetup groups by nature are local and generally speaking, most alliances/joint ventures will be local in nature. So you may as well make it easy for organizers to find their specific region.

I'd like to see a joint calendar on the alliance that shows all the events of all the meetups in the alliance. That way an organizer could instantly see if any other meetup has already posted a similar event. A message board, only accessible to members of the alliance would also be useful.

Robert

Can someone explain the value of joining an alliance? I have made half a dozen alliances with Meetup organizers on my own. Why would I want to join a Meetup alliance? I only see this being beneficial to the person that is head of the alliance no? I am concerned for the branding of my group and marketing of my group. Joining an alliance is like saying I will go under someone else's wing because I have a similar group and I am not as successful as they are with obtaining members.

Ah ... I'd like it to be easier to hold joint events with other meetups.

Me too!

But, I don't see the value in joining an alliance. I simply don't get this.

I definitely see the potential, but only if Meetup.com actually provides related and useful functionality that many of us have been clamoring for. If so, this could be the best thing that has come out of Meetup since I joined!

Can someone explain the value of joining an alliance? I have made half a dozen alliances with Meetup organizers on my own. Why would I want to join a Meetup alliance? I only see this being beneficial to the person that is head of the alliance no? I am concerned for the branding of my group and marketing of my group. Joining an alliance is like saying I will go under someone else's wing because I have a similar group and I am not as successful as they are with obtaining members.

A local alliance may not be for you, but a national alliance may be. It's likely not dettrimental to your group to create an alliance of similar groups across the USA, or can you see that it would be?

New question: why is my group listed on meetupalliance as having 0 members? It has 73.

Hey Robert,

I would also like a calender of that sort

For the message boards, they are already in place here on meetup although they are not used too much by the membership (at least the ones I have visited)

When you're on a group page there is a link called >topic< meetups everywhere
Click that, and on the next page there is a link on the left hand side named message boards

I'd like to see a joint calendar on the alliance that shows all the events of all the meetups in the alliance. That way an organizer could instantly see if any other meetup has already posted a similar event. A message board, only accessible to members of the alliance would also be useful.

Robert

New question: why is my group listed on meetupalliance as having 0 members? It has 73.

Jamie --

At the moment, you have to update those numbers yourself.


Meetup --

We really, really need to fix the Meetup Alliance site so that it takes feeds from each sub group of members and most recent events. Entering this data yourself is irritating.

Hmm

Hi Hilary and Jamie,
There is a way to have those numbers automatically pulled. Log in. Go to your account settings at the top of the page. Check the box that says "auto update" for each of your groups. Save your settings. You should be all set!

Karina