Meetup Followup: SUCCESS!
The Ohio LessWrong group has just had their very first meet-up. It was extremely successful, with 13 people attending, including two out-of-town guests; Yvain, and KatieHartman.
We reserved the back room of a Max and Erma's that was equidistant from Columbus and Cincinnati. No one had to drive more than ~50 minutes each way.
We have been using a Google group for communication. Please PM me, if you would like to join the Ohio LW google group.
We met for four hours. Some things we discussed included: Introductions, What we wanted the group to do, How/When to organize future meetups, and a good amount of rationality-specific discussions. We brought games, but did not end up needing them.
Something that worked for us that might be useful to others is that we found a location that was decent driving distance from 3 cities (Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton). I think this is something that will also work well for other new meetups that are trying to form in less populated/rationalist areas. If there isn't enough people for a meetup in your specific city, could you find a half-way point to another city?
Ooh! This excites me. I'll start looking at possible venues here in Cincy when I get off work today. I can also ping the local skeptic and atheist meet-up groups to see if there are any LessWrong readers among them who missed the poll and this posting (as I almost did) and have them reply.
Yay! Someone responded! That makes me happy! What part of Cincy are you from? I grew up in West Chester. I remember when it was tiny.
We might want to wait to see how many people respond, and from where, before we set a location.
For example, if we have three people from Cincy and just me from Cbus- I will be coming down 71 S, so it would be nice if the meetup were somewhere like south Lebanon.
If however, we also have someone from Indianapolis coming, then they will be coming from 74, so we might want to do somewhere like Colerain Twp.
I was wondering how we would recognize each other, and then I thought it might be easier if people posted a pic of themselves. Google Docs seemed like a good choice, because everyone has it, and then we have the option of putting everyone's (who wants to) pic on the same doc.
So, here's me. Send me a pic, or your email if you want to add to it.
Born and raised in Price Hill on the edge of Delhi. I have no recent close-up photos of myself, but you can probably find an old one by googling my username. Otherwise I'll be the pale, nearsighted ginger with a ponytail, and some pi on his shirt.
Holding off on proposing locations. I am not familiar with the northern half of Cincinnati.
I'll be in Cincinnati on the 22nd. I may be able to make it a day early if this gets switched to there; otherwise I'd be happy to meet anyone there who wants to meet me.
It would be great to have you at our first area meetup! The 21st was picked pretty randomly. The 22nd works just as well!
From the responses so far (6 people coming from Cincy, and 2 from Cbus), I am tentatively expecting our meetup location to be near Cincy off I-71, somewhere outside of 275, like Landen or south Lebanon.
I'm originally from Cincinnati, but I'll be back to Indiana right after Christmas. :-(
I assume you mean far-away-in-Indiana, not right-across-the-border, ten-minutes-away Indiana, yes?
Let us know if there comes a time you could work in a meetup. For example, if there was a weekend that you were visiting family in Cincy anyways!
NEW IDEA EDIT- Somewhere like Brookville, OH (north-west of Dayton) seems to be within an hour and a half of Cincy, Cbus, and Indy. How would you feel about that?
I think this would be great. I don't live in Columbus anymore, I live in Springfield, so Brookville is very close to me. I could show up very regularly!
NEW IDEA EDIT- Somewhere like Brookville, OH (north-west of Dayton) seems to be within an hour and a half of Cincy, Cbus, and Indy. How would you feel about that?
Hmm... I haven't been to one of these meetups before, so I don't know how awesome they are, but I'm generally pretty skeptical too spend more time driving than doing whatever it is I'm driving to. I think that I'd rather just skype with you guys and save the 3 hours.
I normally live in Lafayette, which is about three or four hours away from Dayton. I don't plan on returning to Cincinnati until perhaps next year.
Is anyone available to give me a ride from Cincinnati city center to the meetup? I can pay in gas money or interesting conversation.
IMPORTANT
Cincinnati, Columbus, and other nearby folk!!
I am putting together an email group, so that we don't bombard LW with our planning stuff. If you didn't get a PM, and you would like to be on the group, please message me with your email.
Kind of curious about how many LWers live in the greater Cincinnati area. I posted a while ago looking for some but I only had maybe one response. It looks like there are at least three of us plus a few others from the area.
According to this map of LWers there are at least four of you. Putting Cincinnati second only to the Bay area in terms of how many people responded to the survey. That map is the reason that I realized it would be a good idea to hold a meetup in Cincy!
Discussion article for the meetup : Columbus or Cincinnati Meetup
WHEN: 22 January 2012 05:00:00PM (-0500)
WHERE: Wilmington, OH
Location: Max & Erma's off I-71 in Wilmington
Bring a board game(s).
There is an Ohio LW email list and google group being formed. PM me to get on it.
(Currently expecting ~9 attendees. Carpools available)
Discussion article for the meetup : Columbus or Cincinnati Meetup