Guide to organising meetups

Girona Buddies is self-organising. That means anyone can plan an event or meetup. Creating your own meetup means you get to do what you enjoy with other people who like it too. 😊

To help with organising meetups, we've made this short guide.

Step 1: Gauge Interest

Before planning an event, it’s a good idea to see if others are interested.

Post a simple message (or a poll) in the group, like:

Hey! Would anyone be up for meeting to practise German this Saturday?

Wait a few hours — sometimes it takes a while for people to respond. If no one replies, it might just mean there's no interest right now, and that’s okay!

Step 2: Deciding the date and time

Polls are a good way to determine interest and figure out the best date and time that works for everyone.

Step 3: Create a WhatsApp event (optional)

In WhatsApp you can create events like this:

Anyone can make WhatsApp events, not only admins!

How to make a WhatsApp event:

The advantage of a WhatsApp event is people can RSVP to it. Also the event will show up in the Girona Buddies community calendar.

Step 4: Promote the event (optional)

Ways to make people more aware of your event:

• Make a message with all the event details in it (You can put asterisks to make text in bold, *like this*)

  

  Event summary

• Post your meetup in the General chat or the Meet-ups subgroup.
• In the days before the event, post gentle reminders to remind people. This also helps new people (because new people in the chat can’t see any previous posts).
• Post the event to Meetup, Instagram, and Facebook:
  • Meetup https://www.meetup.com/gironabuddies. Currently only Paul has access, contact him to put an event there
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gironabuddies. Currently only Paul has access, contact him to put an event there
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gironabuddiesfacebook. We don't have many followers there, but anyone can post there. You can also create an Event there.

After the event

After your event, please share a photo in the subgroup or even the General chat! It encourages others to join next time.

Ask permission before taking photos or posting them somewhere. Before you take the photo, you could ask "Is it ok if I take a photo to share in the group?"

Where to hold events

Cafés are often the best place for casual meetups:

• Everyone has somewhere to sit
• Drinks are available
• It’s a public space, so people feel safe and free to leave whenever

Centre Civic Barri Vell

We can use rooms at the Centre Civic Barri Vell for free. The rooms are big, quiet, and private. Currently only Paul knows the person to book rooms, so let him know if you want to book a room there. Weekday evenings tend to be already booked, but Friday evenings and Saturdays are usually free.

Currently we can only hold free events there, but if Girona Buddies becomes an official organisation (hopefully soon), we can hold donation and paid events there.

• 
  Dance studio
• 
  Ground floor room
• 
  Room on the top floor

Centre Civic Santa Eugenia

Centre Civic Santa Eugenia

Centre Civic Santa Eugenia also let us their rooms for free. (Paul is the only person with the contact, so let him know if you want to use a room there.)

Admins

Each subgroup has admins. Admins can help by:

• Adding event info to the group description. The only thing new people can see is the group description (new people in the chat can’t see any previous posts), so adding event info to the description lets them see important event details.
• Adding the date and title of your next meetup into the name of the group. This helps people quickly see what's happening. For example: Running in Girona [2nd March] 5 km run in Salt
• Pinning event info messages to the top of the chat

Creating regular events (advanced)

Making regular events (weekly, monthly) is more work but in the long term, it's actually easier because people already know when and where to meet each time. Once you have a strong regular event going, it's easier to run than several one-off events.

Tips:

• If only a few people show up at first, that’s totally normal when starting out. Don’t be discouraged. If your event provides value to people, they will join over time. Keep going!
• Once you have a time, day, and location, try to keep it the same each time. This way people don't have to learn a new time time or location each time.
• When announcing the meetup each week, it helps to post a photo of the previous week's meetup so people can see what it was like.