portal entry

<p>Hi, Grae. First, thanks very much for offering the reminder for folks here.</p><p>As you and others may know, I've been running the online CF meetup for over a decade, but we had a hiatus the past couple of years (I just had no speakers, and lost interest in chasing them down). But I am reinvigorated and doing that chasing now, and have more lined up for the coming weeks. :-)</p><p>But I didn’t even think of blogging an announcement of the meeting here. I will try to do so from now on. (Before the portal, it was Adobe’s blog and we couldn’t post to it, so I just was not in the habit of posting here.)</p><p>I do indeed post the event on the meetup site (the URL you offered), and that gets sent to the 3000 members of the group. I do then also tweet about it via the @cfmeetup account. I am planning to do more announcements to Facebook and LinkedIn as well, and then yep this portal as well.</p><p>And yep, the meetings are recorded, on the URL offered (and also in the invite sent, and in a tweet I offer after each meeting).</p><p>As for your not “being there live” (and that “counting” in terms of attendees), well, I don’t think many make much of that count. We have had meetings with tens of people, and some over 100. Most are about 30. And then there are the recordings (whose counts on Youtube can of course be viewed, but views of the the Adobe Connect recording are not open to the public).</p><p>I’ll add that folks who want to can show support for the meeting by simply RSVPing. It’s not necessary, but it shows “interest”, for whoever may be assessing that. After 250+ episodes, I really don’t watch it very closely, or use that as a means to gauge health. :-)</p><p>I take far more comfort in seeing that upon having the first meeting 2 weeks ago, there were the normal number of signups within days of announcing it (even only the few ways I did). That helped me see that there was indeed still a demand for the group, beyond the few people who toggled me over the past couple of years.</p><p>I should add that the ModernizeOrDie podcast folks also announced the rekindling of the CFMeetup this week, and I trust would also going forward.</p><p>I do indeed have other speakers already lined up (since 2 weeks ago, but I was holding off announcing until after this meeting, to avoid confusion.)</p><p>Finally, you mention not having heard about the meeting. If you may mean that you are a member of the group and may not have gotten an invite, it’s that they (meetup.com) only send it to those who have been “active” in the group (on the cfmeetup site, in some way) in the past year–and since the group was on hiatus, many are thus no longer “active” (even though still members).</p><p>I sent an email to all the members a couple of weeks go, which meetup said should then go to all or nearly all 3000 members (unless they turned off the ability to receive emails from the organizer, me). So I am trying in various ways to get things “going again”.</p><p>Finally, about the 11am issue, what timezone are you in? Central? If so, it's showing the time "for you". I add the words in the meeting invite to be 100% clear of the time and timezone. Sadly the meetup.com site is designed for in-person events and doesn't always work well for an online group like ours. </p><p>Anyway, again I do appreciate your heads-up here and hope to make it part of my process to be sure to post about the next one (which I would likely do tomorrow after the currently scheduled meeting).</p><p>/charlie</p>

Comment by Charlie Arehart

I just want to add, Thank you, Charlie.

Comment by ShawnPO

Thanks Charlie.  I went back through my emails and did indeed get the email on the 10th but neglected to add it to my calendar so it slipped my mind.  It came up again yesterday in my "Events this week" email so while I was browsing here it occurred to me I had not seen a post so did one.  I figure most people know through other means but thought it couldn't hurt. I'm on the east coast so no idea why it showed central for me so thought i'd also throw that note out. I did do the RSVP so glad that helps you gauge the interest.  I've watched pretty much all of them so thanks again for all you do organizing them.

Comment by Grae Desmond