What we’re about
Every month, we will post links to three unrelated web pages, usually news stories, to discuss at dinner. People are to read these articles (and other sources if they so wish) and come and have dinner to discuss them. The intent is that this REQUIRED reading will take about 2 hours. The events will generally be on Sunday or Saturday evening to give people time during the weekend to do the reading.
The idea is to be like a book club, but with far more modest demands on peoples' time.
RSVP's will be limited.
There will also be a focus on having a nice meal from a variety of international cuisines, the restaurants will have a different nationality every time. We will only go to restaurants that agree in advance to do separate checks. Specific information about the price of a restaurant (if not a link to an online menu) will be provided.
A *DEPOSIT* will be required to RSVP which will be *REFUNDED* *IN* *CASH* when you show up at the meetup on time. However, this feature of meetup has been broken in recent months, so people may get in free -- so be it.
ANONYMOUS MEMBER POLICY
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This meetup does not allow anonymous members. All new members must have a picture, less than 10 years old, clearly showing their face, posted, and must post a human first name. There are two main reasons for this:
• Part of the experience that I am trying to create is that people will get to know each other, and when deciding whether to attend, will be able to look at who has RSVP'ed and recognize their friends. People who don't list the names they are referred to while present, and who don't have recognizable pictures of themselves up, are very hard to keep track of.
• Anonymous people are sometimes very badly behaved. For example, they will lie in the discussion on the event pages or on the discussion board, and it can take a lot of work and research to expose them as liars, at which point they just trade in their old anonymous identity for a new one. Also, anonymous people tend to be much more rude than others. For those reasons, I would prefer that everybody in attendance have a reputation at stake.
PRE-EVENT DISCUSSION
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Sometimes there will be pre-event discussion, as comments on the event page, or on the discussion board, about the topics. Rude comments will be deleted at the organizer's discretion, as will comments by people who won't be attending, especially if they are running down the topics.
