Serious problems with Meetup.com

Our local Kerry group is having serious problems with meetup.com and I'm wondering if others are also. Various folks have contacted them and tried to rectify the problems, but to no avail. They list several locations for the Kerry meetup, but several of the owners of those locations have requested that we not use their facility. We also still have Dem meetups for approximately six different groups. We've successfully unified these groups into our campaign, but the meetups are still listed and we can't get meetup to stop. Each month, we are have to find six volunteers to go to these meetups and direct them to the central one. The volunteers sometimes get angry that they were left out of the loop (I know I did). We also have 300 plus volunteers and have changed the time and place of the meetups to a community center that can accomodate lot's of folks.

Any suggestions?

Sort of systemic things that could not always be changed.

I would suggest starting a Yahoo group for your bunch if you haven't already. Make sure you announce it at the meetup, and you can use it for important messages, events, pictures, address lists and contact information, etc.

It helped our group out a lot!

Can you list the upcoming meetups in here and then at your next meetup instruct everybody to go to this web site to find the info?

http://www.kerryconnector.com/index.cfm

to let the newcomers know - at least MeetUp now has a email option so it helps a little - if that new member has not enabled that option there is no way to contact them.

When another venue is listed - typically one where we are not wanted -one of our volunteers goes there to meet the newcomers.

There is one venue that they repeatedly list month after month despite the fact that MeetUp has been contacted by email and phone by both the venue owners and myself. This venue does not want to listed as a venue for any MeetUp group as it is a very quiet bookshop.

While MeetUp is fine for bringing newcomers together the inability of hosts to communicate or change venues where we are not wanted is a major problem. I'll be so glad when the campaign is over so I never have to deal with MeetUp again.

Apparently a common thing is for some venue manager to sign up to host an event, then when people actually SHOW UP, the rightwing owner says "I don't want all these damn liberals taking up my space not buying anything supporting Dean/Kerry/truth/America..." and then throws them out on the street.

Be nice if there was a way to include non-commercial spaces for Meet-Up events, like public library meeting rooms, or whatever, but the venues pay to host the events, thus supporting Meet-Up.

Combining it with Yahoo or whatever lends you the recruitment ability of Meet-Up, but better communication abilities. I don't know.

I bet the Republican War Machine doesn't have to rely on "free" web services to spread their word. "Which country club shall we use to host our next meeting to plan the end of civilization?"

the candidates in the MO 3rd Confressional Dem Primary speak to our group on Wed. this week. Around noon meetup sent an email to every one who was to attend the meetup saying the location had been changed, which was not the case. Our attendance was terrible because of the screw up.

...if you're not payig for their added services, you're way down at the bottom of their lists of things to do.

That's my guess.

If you're group has reached the point that they're losing time and money, it would probably make sense to be a paying customer.

(I presume they have the option of being a paying customer.)