What are your tips for first-time meet-up hosts?

[HelloJess]

Many of you are experts at hosting meet-ups, so I’m curious — what tips do you have for someone hosting a meet-up for the first time? I’m going to tag @IlankovanT , who I know has hosted a LOT of meet-ups so I’m sure he can kick off the conversation. I’ll also tag @br14n , who has also hosted meet-ups (and whose photo I used below!). And why not throw in @Shirni , @Shirley and @PaulPavlinovich for good measure

Meet-up hosts, let us know your tips in the comments below. If you’re new to Local Guides or just have a question about how to organize a meet-up, feel free to also leave a comment.

[PaulPavlinovich]

My #1 tip is have fun. Every meetup is valuable, whether it be a couple of people getting together to update local maps, enjoy a coffee or meal or take on a geowalk/photowalk. Don’t try to start too big, think about what might be fun - chat to other Local Guides to get ideas and to thrash out your own. Once you’ve got something create your meetup at https://maps.google.com/localguides/meetup but you cannot relax just yet. Now start to post about your meetup on every social channel you’ve got to enthuse people to join you. Invite both Local Guides and others. The best way to make others become Local Guides is get them interested via a meetup. 24 hours before your meetup post out a reminder recapping the meet point, time and purpose of the meetup. At this time you can’t contact people who have joined your meetup but I think that’s a common request so cross your fingers and it might appear eh @HelloJess ?

Get to your meetup point early (I usually fail at this!!) and use something like a printed Local Guides Powered By Us Logo to help people find you. Greet everyone and introduce yourself and start your meetup. At the end I like to get feedback on how things could be better next time.

My #2 tip is never give up, sometimes no-one shows up to a meetup, that’s ok, enjoy the day and do it anyway.

Regards Paul

[system]

I’m not yet at PRO but I’ve had 5 plus and with that little experience, I can tell you

1. Always make a physical check of where you plan to do a geo walk, ask questions to make sure there’s freedom of movement there.

2. Always ask questions before deciding on where to make a photo walk, many places in Nigeria require you tell the police what you want to do, so you don’t get into trouble. I don’t think we have local guides lawyers yet.

3. Always budget so as not to spend more than you had wanted. If you’re not in the best position to spend, mark your meetup as expenses not covered.

4. The most important thing however is what @PaulPavlinovich said , no matter what. Always have FUN.

C’est tres Important.

[PaulPavlinovich]

@user_not_found I would never cover the expenses of others, Local Guides isn’t about making yourself poor.

[HelloJess]

Great tips @PaulPavlinovich . You’re correct in that there isn’t a way to directly contact your attendees besides the post on Local Guides Connect. That said, watch this space…

[HelloJess]

Five meet-ups, @user_not_found ? That’s impressive. I really like your advice about checking your meet-up location out ahead of time. This is also important if you want to host a meet-up at a cafe or restaurant.

[PaulPavlinovich]

Always hopeful @HelloJess

When Local Guides are creating meetups, the team members like @HelloJess are absolutely awesome about helping push things along and resolve issues and give you ideas and encouragement if you need it.

[HelloJess]

You’re too kind, @PaulPavlinovich ! We really do our best to encourage and support Local Guides meet-ups, especially those who are hosting (or attending!) for the first time. We particularly appreciate feedback that Local Guides share regarding your experience with meet-ups and other ways we can help out.

[NunungAfuah]

Hi @HelloJess , I do agree with you. Batu Local Guides meet up hosted by @br14n is always awesome. I have several chance to join their meet up. They always have a good preparation for how long meet up will be, how many people can bring the additional meals, and even, they are always being supported each other even they are absent for joing certain meet up.

I think, the tips for a good meet up to run well is that how the host can cover all the attendance needs. The good relation between local guides will make them more comfortable and eager to have another meet up. Being fair of paying attention for all of members (even the old or the new one is equal) will make the meet up be successful.

Finally, always being free to share the ideas and discoveries because that is the reason why local guides need some meet-up.

[KhanArifRahman]

Thanks a lot @HelloJess for your informative topic.I have a question regarding using Google logo. I am on level 5 now and owner of #Bagerhat Local Guides but not recognized yet by Google. Can I use local guides/Google logo on my meet up program.

@PaulPavlinovich @user_not_found

@NunungAfuah @HelloJess @TraciC

[Shirley]

Hey @HelloJess !

Just woke up on my side of the world to this discussion! What a great idea, mind you I can’t say I’m an expert or anything…but I’ll throw in my two cents.

1. Be engaged with your community. If no one knows who you are, chances are, people will be really shy and don’t want to come out. Even if you’ve never met them in person, post in your online community, chat with them. Find out what some of the common interests are and plan your meet ups are that at first.

2. Plan your event well in advance as well. People are busy and have other things going on in their lives. Don’t plan something that will happen within the next week and expect lots of people to show up. I would do at least two or three weeks.

3. Once you plan something, engage and reach out to your community as well. And promote on social media and anywhere that you can think of.

4. Make sure there’s a way for people to contact you if they need to on the day of and a way for you to connect with them quickly.

5. Arrive early at the location and be prepared. Make sure you can be easily recognized, either tell people what you’ll wear or make it really obvious.

That’s it for now, if I think of more, I’ll add

[IlankovanT]

Thanks for the commendation @HelloJess . The first thing that came to my mind when I read this post is my first meet up “lagoon trail – Video” held in Batticaloa. I didn’t have much expectations when I organized my first meet-up, but that ended up as an unforgettable event. Here are some tips that I feel important when you are about to host your first meet up.

Don’t panic!

Do not feel peculiar about being a host for the first time. Keep calm and give it your best. When you are hosting events, there may be new faces and at times, this may also be a gathering of your colleagues. This obviously depends on the way you organize the event and reach out people. In my case, several new faces who participated in my first meet up are still being active in my community. In fact, some of them have now become my thick mates. As far as we don’t know what tomorrow will be bringing, keep cool and give your best.

Reaching out the best fit!

Influencing people is a complicated art. In order to make your meet up as a successful one, you may have to gather an enthusiastic click of local guides. In my case, I initiated my first meet up inviting some of my friends and then shared in on Social media to reach many people. As a result, there were many new faces participated. To be more precise, the number of new faces was even more than my friends. I was super excited to see so many new faces. Because they were the ones who took part knowing the benefits already. I can still show hands on those active local guides who took part in my first meet up.

However, nowadays if I am planning to host a meet up I use to share it on my HO with Sri Lanka local guides, this is a platform where we share our day to day and weekly issues and practical concerns. When I share it on such a platform, I get many feedbacks. Based on their concerns, I use to modify the meet-up and make it a more efficient one.

Nurture your passion

Do not make a meet up just because everyone else is doing. Bring it from your heart. Do what makes you happy, do what brings you fun and share the fun on. In my case, I love photography. When I host meetups, I capture almost everything on my camera. I do the same when I take part in meet-ups hosted by my colleagues as an attendee too. At the end of the day, I will come up with a short clip of video (check below) or a collection of photographs if I attend or host a meet-up.

Apart from these tips, if you want to host hangouts please do check my 12 Tips for a Successful Hangout.

I’m sharing some of my favorite Meet-ups

1- Lagoon Trail – Video

2- Cafe Talk - Video

3- Batticaloa photowalk - Video

4- Batticaloa Geowalk - Video

5- National LG meetup – Video

6- Batticaloa book donation – Video

7- SriLanka Local Guides Geo Walk - Video

8- SriLanka Local Guides Geo Walk - Video

9-Sri Lanka - The “36” Arugambay - Video

10- Knowledge Sharing Session – Video

[MahabubMunna]

@HelloJess Inform you that today we ( Bangladesh Local Guides ) complete 70th meetup

[PaulPavlinovich]

@KhanArifRahman you can’t use the main logo - that’s reserved for Google Branding, but you can use the Local Guides Powered By Us logo like I did in my 36 Walk Promo image below

You’ll find lots of items ready made as images for you to use here such as stickers and name tags https://maps.google.com/localguides/meetup/how-to

There’s lots of information on what you can and can’t do here https://support.google.com/local-guides/answer/6273834?hl=en

There is a branding guidelines page which has all the resources for Powered By Us but I’m having trouble finding it. Either someone else will chime in with the link or I’ll find it and reply again.

[AnuradhaP]

It is all about having fun and express yourself in your unique way.

@HelloJess I have hosted ten meetups and the most important thing I noticed is that we should allow participants to express themselves rather than telling them to what to do. When writing meetup recaps, we should allow everyone to explain it as they saw through their eyes.

THE BIG FEAR

As far as I know, the biggest fear you would have a first-time meetup-host is that how many local guides will turn up for the meetup. You will think that no one will turn up. This is because you want to make the first meetup as memorable as you can.

I recently saw a first-time meetup hosted by @Shafranlive in Sri Lanka was cancelled due to this fear. In my opinion, if there are two including you can have a nice meetup. The lowest number of participants I had was three in “LLG Badges and MYWW 2017” meetup, but we had a lovely time.

Do not believe the number of attendees in the local guides meetup site. Once I had over 90 attendees, and only nine turned up. Very recently I hosted a meetup, and there were only five attendees in the meetup site but no one from that list came, and there were about 10 participants at the meetup without informing.

The Solution

I think the solution for this is to inform few known local guides to participate the event personally. This will ensure you will have at least few participants for the first meetup. You can get contacts of fellow local guides by joining a local guides community in your area. You can also invite few of your close friends to come and join with you. They do not need to be local guides, during the meetup you can ask them to join the program.

As fellow local guides, we should help first meetup hosts. We should not give them hope that we will participate if we can not participate. You should explicitly tell them in advance. Otherwise, they will be demotivated. I have seen this happened in Sri Lanka.

Funny thing is memorable meetups are unplanned ones.

These days what I do is I will give full publicity to the meetup through meetup site, community pages, Facebook, but I always personally invite few fellow local guides who will be there. This has helped me to host memorable meetups. Invite people in person; I think this is the more effective way in my experience.

I believe this has helped to select two of the meetups we hosted as most memorable meetups of Local Guides program in the article “Local Guides Connect is now 200k members strong”.

• Six Local Guides, three meetups, two nights and three days, 718 .6 kms on wheels
• ReCap - Sri Lanka MYWW 2017 Wrap-up

You should not try to influence people too much; you must let them express themselves. Always you have to use “WE” not “ME”. The meetup is a teamwork, and without others, you can not have a successful meetup.

For first-meetup hosts: Have fun, express yourself, continue contributing to the Google Maps and Local Guides Program, and Local Guides Connect.

[PaulPavlinovich]

@AnuradhaP good advice mate - we all share that fear of no-one turning up.

One of the recent 36 walk organisers had exactly that happen - she just went on with the walk anyway and had a fun day. We should all remember is that the worst thing that happens is that we enjoy ourselves by ourselves and that is never a bad thing.

[DiAnaUS]

Loved your tips @IlankovanT I’m trying to hold my first official orlando meet up in a few weeks and I definitely needed these tips!

@HelloJess thank you for this post! All of us can benefit, from hearing from the experts

[IlankovanT]

@DiAnaUS happy to hear that your hosting a Meet-up. All the best for your Meet-up, take more photos and share with us

[IlankovanT]

@HelloJess , @br14n1, @Shirni, @Shirley_Y, @PaulPavlinovich

I would like to share another success story with you all.
We Sri Lanka local guides are Monthly hosting Hangouts (HO) to discuss about meet-up activities, fun discussions and etc.
However, for this month’s HO I was out from home on a holiday. when I received the reminder from my Google calendar, I presented myself at the right time for our monthly HO and was waiting others to join, no one joined for HO. May be every one else was busy enjoying the weekend. What I did was, I kept the video call on for a while and suddenly noticed a local guide joining​ the HO who also attended the last Vesak Lantern Meetup. That’s @ThanulakshanS . I know him since from the last Meetup. He is from Jaffna, Sri Lanka. So we just started to have a fun chat

During our fun HO I just asked him “why don’t you create a community for Jaffna District” and he said he is bit reluctant to do as he doesn’t have many Local Guides from Jaffna area. Also he don’t know how to create and manage a community. I just gave him some tips and shared some links. He then created a community over the night and invited many LG to join.

After a week he called and asked me if you don’t mind can you please tell me how host a successful Meetup. I shared my ideas with him and today he will be hosting his first Meetup without any fear.

Likewise, Hangouts and chats will help people to break their fears meeting fellow local guides. Happy to see a new community with their first Meet-up

[ThanulakshanS]

Thank you bro @IlankovanT You are my inspiration to become LG after i create a community lots of friends asking why .?? So that need to make knowledge sharing session also , and these are nice tips to make my meetup Successful @IlankovanT , @HelloJess @PaulPavlinovich @AnuradhaP Thank you so much And this is like we didn’t prepare for exams but last moment we just show two pages and thats come to exams Great tips i will use it for my meet ups hopefully less than three hours to my first meetup Really excited