Have you just moved to a new city? Want to meet the locals and make some friends trough a safe and friendly groups? Well, then try out Meetup.com It’s possibly the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup.com makes it super easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one according to their interest. The site has 10.8 million monthly visitors, and 11.1 million members (though this number is somewhat biased since many are inactive), but with 2 million RSVPs, the website mission to connect the locals through social groups is working.
Check out if your city is part of Meetup.com – there are apparently 45,000 cities that host these Meetup events. For example, if you just moved to Montreal and want to improve your French, you might decide to join the French Meetup. You don’t have to be a newbie in a city to join a group. If you want to improve your photography skills, or have started taken interest in hiking, you can find those too. Regions do play a role in how many members or how active a group is. The Japanese Meetup in Vancouver has over 1000 members and have 2 regular events every month for the last 5 years with each one with 20 people or more. Go to Calgary, and there is less than 300 members with about 5 members sign up for each event – not a sufficient number to make good connections.
With so many things today being online, and connections only through the web, we’ve deprived ourselves from real socialization. This is a perfect opportunity to interact with real human beings once again – whether it’s to make new friends or for business purposes.
A lot of the Meetup groups are free to attend (unless specified for a special event, or if they charge a attendance fee per event – usually $1) This request for the small fee is usually to cover material costs and to have the Meetup.com group. The cost to run the groups on Meetup.com vary depending on the plan you choose: (all fees are in US Dollars)
- $12/month for 6 months (a single $72 charge)
- $15/month for 3 months (a single $45 charge)
- $19/month for the month-to-month billing option
With any of the above plans, organizers can run up to 3 Meetup Groups without any further costs.
Again, for Meetup members to attend, it doesn’t cost anything unless the organizers ask for any, so start joining! As far as I know, there aren’t any limits to how many groups you can join, so let the fun begin!
![:D](http://www.idearabbit.ca/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)