Guide to organising meetups
Girona Buddies is self-organising. That means anyone can plan an event or meetup. To help with that, 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 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!
You can also use a poll to ask:
Would you be interested in a German practice meetup on Saturday?
- Yes
- Maybe
- Not this time
Step 2: Deciding the date and time
Example poll questions:
What day works best for you?
- 17th Feb
- 18th Feb
- 19th Feb
- 20th Feb
Where should we meet?
- In a café
- In a park
Step 3: Promoting the event (optional)
You can make a message with all the event details in it.
Tips: Put asterisks to make text in bold, *like this* Use underscores to put text in Italics, _like this_
You can see if people outside the subgroup also want to join by posting in the General chat or in the Meet-ups subgroup.
New people in the chat won’t see any previous posts, so if you see new people join, you can post a reminder of the event.
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.
It's good to ask permission before posting the photo 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 also use rooms at the Centre Civic Barri Vell for free. The rooms are big, quiet, and private. Currently only Paul knows the process 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 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
Here are ways admins of groups can help:
- Add 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.
- Add 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
- Pin event info messages to the top of the chat
Creating regular events
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, date, and location, try to stick with every week. This way people don't have to learn a new time time or location each time.
- Try to give at least a few days notice so people can plan ahead.
- It helps to post a photo of the previous week's meetup so people can see what it was like.
Promoting Your Event (advanced)
We have 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.
