As has become customary, after every Meetup I host, I share with you all, all the steps I took, so, that; just in case, anyone wants to replicate the idea without contacting me, it will be easy for them.
At the risk of boring you, the Previous ones I have made, include;
- BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE FIRST MEETUP I CO-HOSTED
- PLEASE INCLUDE U.T.C. or G.M.T. IN MEETUP APPROVAL
- CONNECT IDs ON R.S.V.P. LIST, S’il Vous Plait
- MY MEETUP CHALLENGES AND HOW I OVERCAME THEM
- GOOGLE MEET- HOW TO USE AS ATTENDEE AND AS HOST
- CREATE A SHARED/COLLABORATIVE GOOGLE PHOTO ALBUM
- BECOME A BETTER WRITER ON CONNECT, SHARE LINK
I have titled this post; “The Pregnancy Journey” for a good reason.
The time from which you conceive a Meetup idea up to the point of delivery can be likened to the Pregnancy journey, at least for me.
So, I am sharing the Pregnancy journey of M.A.C.C.A.-4 with you all;
- behind the scenes,
- challenges,
- trips,
- Tips and
- tricks
and as compensation for having to accompany me on this not-so-boring journey; a delightful video, which I only got right after 14 failed attempts and which I have watched about 19 times. It may interest you to know that the video is only 19 minutes and less than 12 hours old.
So, let’s go through this journey Step-by-step…
CONCEPTION
MEETUP IDEA
I have mentioned the inspiration behind hosting the Meetup here in the recap post. What I will add to that is; I spent over 2 weeks ruminating on the idea with** @FalguniP and @AlphaSays **
So, the first point to note is; TAKE OUT SOME TIME TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO AND WHY YOU WANT TO DO IT AND HOW YOUR MEETUP IDEA IS RELEVANT TO THE LOCAL GUIDES PROGRAM AND HOW IT WILL “HELP PEOPLE FIND PLACES WORTH VISITING AND THINGS WORTH DOING”.
Sit and ask yourself these questions;
- Is my Meetup Idea relevant to the Local Guides Program? Is it about food? the Google Maps? Photography? Travel? supporting local businesses? sharing something that binds Local Guides together? You can add to the list. I think a good way to evaluate is; "If my Meetup idea was a Post on Connect, will the Google Moderators move it to 'off topic’?
- After my Meetup, will people be inspired to visit a place or will it help them find places worth visiting?
- After my Meetup, will people be inspired to try and explore new things and new ways of solving problems?
- If you are like Ewaade; “will people be happy”? This last point is actually irrelevant to the Local Guides’ Program.
PREGNANCY
Now, you have conceived your Meetup idea, what’s next?
I have called this second stage; “Pregnancy” for a reason.
When a woman is Pregnant, she takes special care,
- She tells the people most important to her
- Reads up many books
- Contacts the best Physician(s)
- Register at a Clinic well in advance
Now, let’s put this in perspective;
- You got to tell the people closest to you, you are not going to attend your Meetup alone, even though you conceived the idea alone. This is very important in having an impactful Meetup. Let the people closest to you be your first and best critic, they tell you if to fling your idea right out the window, you should listen. I got a lot of bashing from Falguni and had to make a lot of clarification to Alpha.
- Of course, I read. If someone has already had a Meetup you want to hold, in my opinion, you can help promote the person’s recap post, comment on it, and share with all you know. If you think your Meetup is different, read theirs to find out what you can ‘pick and learn’ from them. Also attend Meetups to learn from others.
- Contact the best Physicians. In my case, I contacted the best Physicians.
- I began by contacting our group, where I have my seniors in the program; fellow Local Guides from Lagos, Nigeria; Emeka Ulor, Patrick Daudu (Doublefreez), Uchenna, Sagir Adamu, Mr. Sanya and so many others. They took their time to talk to and explain to me so many things about the program and I was really enlightened and knew the next steps to take. Especially @EmekaUlor who is ever ready to share, listen and educate. Thank you, Emeka.
- Next; Alpha and Falguni. Alpha is the techie one. Falguni is the smart one that is good with figures and organizing stuffs. What’s more? We share almost similar vision and outlook on life. We want to do stuff, not for selfish gains, but for the benefit of all. Many of the things we did behind the scenes including the late nights, I can not share without their permission. What’s my point in all of these? Find your team, meet with like minds and know what exactly you want to do…
- Final one is; my**Paul
@PaulPavlinovich **Oh Yes! I am very possessive of the Teacher, after all, I am his only apprentice 
At the Photography Online Series, one of the things that kept me going back, in addition to the fact that Paul is such a great teacher is ‘Paul’s Presentation’; his slides. I think he makes the best slides ever! I have terrible allergic conjuctivitis, my eyes will react to specific types of light and all, so often times when I attend Meetups, I am unable to look at the screen when people present, but Paul really understands how these works! So, he was there to share the tips with me; what application to use, what font, what sizing, how to choose colors, just name it! Paul is magnanimous. Thank you, Paul. Shortly after Meetup approval with barely 4 days to the Meetup, I took ill. I had to consult the fourth Physician - @Jose_G_Benjamin José is very good, very kind, and ever willing to help. I contacted him and he helped with creating the slides for my presentation, after I shared with him what Paul had shared with me and the data and how I wanted the Presentation to look, he began work on it. José has done several works for me before that I never used, so, he kindly added me asEditor.
Ewaadeis difficult to satisfy 
I am sorry, José and thank you for always helping me. 
- Register: It was time to apply for the Meetup, I already explained how to apply here. So, with the discussions and all, I had to figure out;
- how many hours to apply for: As much as possible, try to be honest when applying for the Meetup. Don’t apply for 30 minutes and start dragging your Meetup for 2 hours, because you are waiting for some V.V.I.P. I applied for four whole hours! My heart trembled with trepidation as I wondered if Google will actually approve a 4-hour-Meetup. Well, they did.
- what to write in the Meetup application
- what to put in the banner (your banner is important, it’s the first or second thing people see, make it worthwhile. I have described the tools I use in creating my Banners above) You can check out other banners on Connect and ask how they create their banners if you like them. I spent over 5 hours making the banner and showed Alpha and he went; “the ‘@’ is too far from the 4, how will people know or read what you are talking about?”
make it come together. It took another 45 minutes to fix that.I took the time to describe how I made this flyer on my Instagram; @ewaadedphotographerapprentice, so I am not sharing that here.
LABOR
Your Meetup is not for you, it’s for Local Guides, let your Meetup go on, even if you cannot make it.
Because of the complicated nature of what we wanted to do, we had to be very sure we had it all figured out, before I filed the application. We got approval the very next day. It was time for action.
Unfortunately, I fell ill.
I would contact Paul, Falguni and Alpha to ask if I should cancel as I was so weak, some how, they stood by me and said; “No way”. The women from “W.F.G.” were very helpful too providing remedies and all it was important for me to be well.
Now, why am I sharing this with you? to make you know it is important for you to tell at least one person about your Meetup idea.
So, we did a rehearsal, this rehearsal is very important to me. From the rehearsal, we were able to figure out some things;
- Who should go first for the Presentation? We settled for Alpha. Alpha is one of the smoothest talkers I have come across To follow was Ewaade because of her mighty sense of humor
You bet! Go watch our video, Before you host your Meetup, especially if you will be inviting people to present, it is important to look at the Presentation and listen to them. People are going to leave many things to attend your Meetup, please make it worth their while. - What activities to add, which to ditch? It is important for the hosts of an event especially a Virtual one to Synchronize. Falguni, Alpha and I had such amazing synchrony, almost a ‘chemistry’ that we were all doing things that only we had strengths for; I am the Queen of Ginger, the energetic one, Falguni is the Master at anchoring, she knew everywhere and everything and what each person had to present, she knew how to space time out, she can follow both video, chats, and votes all at once, talk about multitasking, she could switch to the mood of everyone and bring them out of their Comfort zone, Falguni, Alpha is the techie one, the foodie, the entertainer, and the end result was the video, a video so beautiful, so clean that; I did not have to spend an entire day editing. Synchronize
- To learn new things and discuss likely challenges.
- Time: Yea! We wanted each attendee to have just 5 minutes to speak, so, Falguni created 3 placards; 2 minutes, 3 minutes and 5 minutes. When the 3 minutes placard went up, it was your cue to begin to wrap up your presentation, when the 5 minutes placard went up, it was your cue that time was up and you had to stop presenting. It made everyone prepare well in advance.
- Moderate: Some Attendees are fond of going off-topic, we had to plan on how, we will moderate the event, chat room and all. One of the things we did was to create all the docs we would need many days in advance; Google Photo Album link, Voting/Poll doc form, Time-Keeping markers, song playlists, Presentation, etc.
- Google Meet Desktop version: It was my first time of attending a Meet on laptop, so, I had to learn the difference. Most importantly, how to do the ‘Screen shots’ or ‘Snip’. I learnt from Alpha that you had to hold down at once; the ‘windows key, shift key and S’ and select the last option of the popups to take a screenshot. What ‘that Alpha’ never told me was that; “I had to manually save” I lost all the Photos, at least, now I know.
- DELIVERY
What’s left to share from the Meet day?
It was beautiful, the one new thing I learnt is; "no matter how many devices you sign in on (I signed in on two because; from my experience, it seems like there is ‘something’ ever so determined to kick people out of their Meetup) I was determined to see mine through. What I did not know was; Google Meet only uses the video of the device you turn on the Mic. 
. So, my video was on, on the Laptop that had such poor resolution and off on my Phone that had such an amazing resolution, thereby giving blurry images. Sorry, “Dear All”.
Enjoy the company of your attendees, don’t wait or scan or look for anyone, everyone who has spared time to be with you is important, ensure they feel it.
A PROMISE MADE NOT KEPT - KAHOOT
Two days before the event, I realized my Kahoot had expired and renewing the subscription was going to cost a lot for something I will most probably not need for another one month, so, after, I made this post, I attached an appeal, well, I never got. I am very sorry to everyone who thought they were going to play Kahoot.
Please if you are thinking of giving me a gift, you know what I want now, thank you Or for Kahoot to enable one off payments like they took from me in June (last month) to use Kahoot Pro for two weeks.
POST-MEETUP CHALLENGES
- RECAP: I have submitted an idea; CONNECT IDs on R.S.V.P. LIST so until we have this, you cannot know who attended or plans to attend your Meetup. You know what?
I never bothered to ask, not because I knew over 80% of those who came, but because, I figured out, they will have such a nice time, that they will wait for the recap and I would not even have to tag them
-
PRIZES: We had promised to give prizes, what many people did not know was; we secretly prayed that our winners would come from India, Nigeria, Gambia or Cyprus (our country of Residence and origin), so it would be easy to send prizes, it did not happen that way. Thanks to the connections we have, we were able to sort all. Don’t make a promise you cannot keep.
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YOUTUBE VIDEO: This time, it was not difficult. Because Alpha is such a Pro and the three of us had the Meetup under control, we never ‘cleaned it out’, but this time, I got different advice; don’t compress the video, compressing it will make it lose quality. People should enjoy watching the video, upload the original. It was difficult getting this done as we had an ‘after party’, so, Youtube was quick to slam us with copyright claims. What did I do? I took out the whole of the 'after party’ and only posted the time before it. Upload takes a long time, you have to be patient.
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PHOTO ALBUM: after recap was posted, many people began to reach me, they did not feel appreciated enough, their Photo was missing from the Album, they were missing from Cover Photo used on Connect and so many other issues, so we had to do a 'Makeup Video’.
MAKEUP VIDEO
So, what did I put in the Makeup Video?
- My Best comment from the M.A.C.C.A.-4 Chatroom, it was made by @RosyKohli
- A photo collage of our flier, with Falguni added as she was an organizer, along with the collage of our winners for the day
- A presentation by @Shruti_U Shruti Upadhyay because of the way she made everyone talk; she made Falguni ginger her, made Vikram sing to her, made Alpha play special song to her, made Shruti ginger her, made Shreeya hype and motivate her. She got us all in our feelings as she shared with us the beauty and culture of the Pahari People who inhabit the Himalayas Mountaineous range; where she has been living for just a year and the funniest was her lipstick story! I watch that video at least 30 times a day.
- A presentation from Nigeria by @Uchenna whose state of origin is Enugu, Nigeria. His presentation made everyone scream, laugh and jump. Why? 90% of the Attendees went for a Cloth change, but only two of the Attendees went for a Cloth change to return for Presentation, Uche was one of them. On top of all of these, He played a special musical instrument; the Oja flute; from South-Eastern Nigeria, that is played only at special occasions, e.g. when pouring libation to gods or at a chieftaincy coronation ceremony. In his words; he played it because he considers this to be a very “big ceremony”. He broke protocols for us and played a traditional welcome tune.
- A collage of about 20 people from the Meetup
- A screen recording of the amazing! M.A.C.C.A.-4 Photo Album
- Falguni and Yulia Rejecki’s bitmoji and my voice saying; “Thank you and love you”
That was all or so I thought, until I spent 3 days working on the video and the audio and video would not sync no matter what I tried. @jaisoncbe shared with me how to fix it, so did Paul, who asked me to do this;
"@Ewaade_3A were your audio and video recorded together or seperately?
I use kdenlive https://kdenlive.org/en/ to edit videos and you can time shift the audio a little forwards or backwards after separating it from the video to help with sync."
Each video takes a minimum of 40 minutes to save, I tried a record 15 times, 14 whole failed attempts! Before I figured it out.
"If after making so many attempts, it doesn’t work, tear it apart and start over"
After my 14th attempt, I took it all apart, only then did I discover the ‘troublesome clip’ It was the M.A.C.C.A.-4 album Screen recording video.
So, I reordered the clips and placed the ‘troublesome clip’ at third to the last clip with only the bitmojis following it, it took about 50 minutes to save and there it was! Audio and Video were perfectly in sync!
This is the last post and the last video, I am going to make about M.A.C.C.A.-4, please bear with me, some have reached me to say they want to watch the video of the Games and After party, please find it here, after 3:22:00 hours or so, there you will be able to watch that.
In the Comments section, I am going to mention everyone who contributed to the Photo album, thank you for creating such a beautiful piece! Awesome!
especially when Falguni told us the costume weighed about 10kg 
