Does Anyone Want to Lead Melbourne Bloggers Group into 2009?

bars have more background noise and it's therefore difficult to have a conversation

Sorry, have to have a chuckle at that one - remembering the first meetup and the umm ... lets say interesting music on the night. :-)

But seriously ...

There seems to be little enthusiasm/interest with a regular meetup - heck, if we could only manage one so far, well it doesn't look promising.

Also I think the group is lacking in focus - yes, it's for bloggers but we're such an eclectic group that I found little networking opportunities at the only event. This is where The Hive wins out for me (first time I've heard of the group, btw) as it's for entrepreneurs. If there was a separate meetup for foodie bloggers, for business bloggers, tech bloggers etc., such groups could work. This group is too broad and thus has suffered because of it.

As Darren said, we need someone passionate enough to run this thing.

I also agree that we should dump Meetup and move it onto Facebook with maybe even a dedicated website.

I'm more than happy to support it, attend and even chip in some bucks but to be honest I'll be checking out The Hive and see how they run things.

I was part of a very successful group in the UK that charged £5 yearly membership (by paypal) for a group of 80 people. Any extra money from the membership fees where channeled back into drinks at special meetups, like the Christmas meetup. They also shared Asst. Organiser duties, so there were about 10 organisers (which I think is the max). It meant that there were lots of people putting stuff on the board, and less pressure was put on the main organiser to provide activities. It also meant that we got to be a tight knit group.

I agree that there are benefits with FB being free, but the benefits with Meetup are that it is specifically designed to facilitate a group. The automatic reminders are terrific and it's dead easy to use and share responsibilities, whereas in FB, there is more work for the organiser in having to constantly remind people about events. It takes a very proactive organiser to make it successful, whereas in Meetup, you just stick the event into the diary once, and the job is all done for you - much easier.