Time flies and the end of year is creeping on us — that means it's the OzBargain birthday meetup time again! OzBargain is turning 17 this November, and like last year (and the years before), we are inviting OzBargainers to organise face to face meetups in various cities across Australia.
If you would like to use this opportunity to meet other ozbargainers over a meal, practise the OzBargain gang sign and have a chance to grab the latest OzBargain T-shirt, you can either (1) organise a meetup event yourself, or (2) join an existing meetup. To organise an event:
Post a new thread in Site Discussions with "OzBargain 17th Birthday - <Location> Meetup" in the title. Use the thread to discuss with the community to work out preferred date/time & venue. Please note that the meetup event must be in November 2023.
Update the title with date/time and venue when it's confirmed, and I'll add your post into the list of events. A poll will be created to allow users to confirm who will be coming. The updated event system is still in development — not all issues raised last year can be fixed but hopefully it would be easier to use.
Organising events
First of all, budget, and I'm keeping it to strictly $35pp this year, which should cover food, venue and/or activities. OzBargain has been paying for these birthday parties for the last 6-7 years and the cost kept on going up. For the first few years we were sponsoring up to $500 per event, and it went up to $35pp last year. Meals have also "upgraded" from Nandos to Din Tai Fung & buffets, which I felt were out of character for an OzBargain meetup. I know CPI, inflation and all that stuff, so I am still keeping the budget the same as last year's. 60% of events also went over-budget last year, which basically makes having a budget pointless. So for this year we'll only be sponsoring up to $35 x number of users turned up. It would be the organiser's responsibility to collect excess from attendees of the meetup event.
Sometimes a large event might not be ideal if the aim is to mingle and get to know other ozbargainers. A small'ish event with 15 people in an open space would be more manageable. However if someone is up to the challenge of organising a 70 people meetup again this year, I'm not going to stop him/her either.
Try not to duplicate the location. For example if someone has already organised a meetup somewhere in Parramatta, don't organise another one even if it's at a different venue or date.
Update: please have all the events posted up before the end of October.
Some budget examples,
- BBQ or pizza at public park (with coupons, of course)
- Everyone orders UberEats / DoorDash / HungryPanda to eat at the beach and send receipts to scotty for reimbursement
- Cheap eat in a cafe / restaurant
We had Ippudo in Chatswood a few years ago. The food was fine and price was reasonable too. I also went to Shinara BBQ Buffet on Pitt Street Sydney twice this year. $20 lunch time buffet, the quality of the food is so so but the place is not packed and you get 90 minutes to eat & mingle around. I'm sure there are lots of options that you don't have to spend $$$ to eat in a restaurant.
Again, sorry we are not able to sponsor alcoholic drinks in these meetup events.
Add the tag ozbargain17 to your posts.
Attending events
While I would like to open the meetups to all ozbargainers, due to issues in the past,
- Attend one, or at most two events that you are not organising. If you have already attended one or two meetup events this year, let someone else have a chance, especially as some of the events are capped.
- Please do not create new accounts just for the meetups. Organiser should be able to set rules to block accounts that are too new.
This post is work in place. I'll keep everyone updated when we move closer to November and event features get implemented.
@cerealsmok3r: On your own event post, under the comment textbox, there should be a checkbox saying "Notify users registered for this event". Have that checked when you post your comment, and users registered for your event will be notified even when they are not already subscribed to comments.