For the organiser, every week
Your Meetup group, without the paywall
The moment
The end of the evening. The people who talked most want to stay in touch, and half of them will not be on Meetup next month.
Today
Messaging members is part of Meetup's paid plan now, so someone starts a WhatsApp group and reads numbers off phones. The quiet ones never get asked.
How it works here
Open a room named after the group before you head out — “Thursday walkers”.
In the last ten minutes, hold up the code or read the address aloud. Whoever wants in sends one email.
Close it before the goodbyes. Everyone who joined gets everyone who joined, and nobody else.
Say this
“Before we split up: if you'd like to keep in touch with tonight's group, send one email to this address. Number in the subject if you're happy to share it. You'll get one contact file with everyone who did the same, and then it's deleted. It's not a group chat — nobody gets added to anything.”
- Timer
- Fifteen minutes. Newcomers arrive late and leave early; a longer room catches both.
- What's kept
- Nothing. 15 minutes after the file is sent, the room's details are deleted.