[OzBargain 16th Birthday] Get Ready for IRL Meetups This November!

OzBargain is turning 16 this November!

We will be asking our members to organise off-line / in-real-life meetup events to celebrate OzBargain's 16th birthday in November 2022.

List of Events

Please check these events and confirm with the organiser by voting Yes if you are going.

Original Post

In last year's birthday celebrations, our community has organised 14 events across Australia cities with 204 OzBargainers participating, and we are hoping for more to this year. Like in previous years, we are looking for volunteers to organise the events, and OzBargain will pay for meals, venue and hopefully some new T-shirts (if they get manufactured in time for November).

Here are what the organisers need to do:

• Organise a birthday party for OzBargain in your city, on any day in November 2022.
• Post a thread in Site Discussions to get started, titled it "[OzBargain 16th Birthday] <City> Meetup on <Date> at <Venue>". Add a poll with "Yes" and "No" as options, to get an idea who will be able to come.
• Once the event gets enough traction, for example 15+ people that are confirmed coming, PM me so I can send the organisers some T-shirts to be given away.
• Use the event QR code feature to record participants on the day of the event.
• Organisers would need to pay for the food & venue first, keep the receipt and OzBargain will reimburse the cost (unless you can get the venue can invoice us directly). Basically we would like to keep the events free for the OzBargainers.

In light of past experience,

• 8 out of 14 events last year were in Sydney, and some people went to as many as 5 different events. I know where there's free food you can find OzBargainers, but as some events have cap in number of participants I would like to ask those with lots of Not a Bot badge to let other people to have a go.

• Please, we need more Melburnians to organise smaller events. neil has been organising Melbourne meetups in the past years — those got too large and too much work logistically. Don't complain that you only get one meetup in a 5 million people city — pull your hand up & organise one! We might provide bonus funding if you can get jv to come.

• Due to inflation, we will increase the budget to $35pp. Half of last year's meetups blown over budget anyway, but that does not mean there's no hard limit — please be moderate :) Also note that we cannot pay for alcohol. Some people might choose to order drinks in the meetup events. Sorry they'll have to pay themselves if it's an alcoholic drink.

• As these are free events, a lot of people indicated they will come in the polls but did not turn up — that turned out to be quite an issue for us & the organisers. For example last year's Chatswood meetup — 73 OzBargainers voted that they'll attend, but less than 40 turned up — when we have already booked the tables & paid for the meals. For organisers — maybe smaller meetup that people can order on the spot is preferred. Alternatively we can also sell tickets. $5 in our Melbourne event last year, but fully-refundable if you show up at the meetup.

I'll continue to update this post for the next 2 months. Hopefully I'll be able to meet some of you in these events.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I bring my SO to the meetup? What about kids?

Depending on the venues, some might not be kids friendly. Moreover, some venues can only fit a fixed number of guests so bringing more people on the day that were not previously registered to come might cause issues to the venue. As of bringing extra people to come to the meetup event:

• You can bring an extra person, provided that he/she has an OzBargain account and has registered for the event (by voting Yes on the poll).

• You can bring young kids who don't have an OzBargain account.

Q: I am an organiser and I have made a forum post. What else do I need to do?

If you have finalised the date, time & venue of the event, and have set up a poll for the meetup, you can then

• Request for your poll to be set up as an "Event". PM @scotty for that. You'll see an extra "event" tab next to view & edit tab under the post title.
• Add users who have voted "Yes" to the list of participants. These are the ozbargainers you will be expecting on the day! You (+ some co-organisers) will be checking these users in to mark them as attended.

For more information about the event checkin system, please see this help page. On the day of the event:

• Be sure to be there!
• Check in the users. If it's a large event (i.e. 15+ people), some kind of name tags would be helpful. Blank address labels are fine.
• Enjoy the food and chat with other ozbargainers!
• Pay for the event, keep the receipt(s) and email them to me ([email protected]), together with your PayID or BSB/Acc# so I can reimburse you.