latentflip/techmeetup.md

## techmeetup.md

      
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              techmeetup.md
            
          
    TechMeetup Edinburgh Update

I recently sent a short survey round about TechMeetup Edinburgh, and figured I should summarise some thoughts that came out of it.
A little background

For anyone who's not been around the tech scene in Edinburgh for ~6 years, TechMeetup was started by Sam Collins about 6 years ago to create a space to pull the wider Edinburgh tech & startup community together.
Since then, we've expanded to events in Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness. And the Edinburgh event has cycled through a number of organisers in the last 6 years. Currently it's organised by myself and Marius.
All the TechMeetups are community and volunteer run. We get sponsorship to cover food and drinks (thanks Skyscanner, neo and Informatics Ventures, but organising events is all done in our own time, and for free.
TMU Edinburgh: from Appleton Tower to Skyscanner

I agreed to take on organisation of TechMeetup Edinburgh over a year ago. The main reason I agreed to do so was that I hoped I could make it a more friendly and inclusive event for everyone in the community. I had a number of concerns to that end, but a major one was the venue.
Appleton Tower (the previous venue for anyone new to TMU) very kindly hosted us every month for a number of years, and for free. It was passable a space for anyone who'd been coming for years, but it had a number of complications, both for organisers and new attendees. The main ones being:

It was difficult to get in to the building and find the space. Even as organisers we had a single, semi-legitimate access card to the building, which was split in multiple places, and couldn't get a new one.
Campus security weren't entirely aware of the event (to be clear we had full support from Informatics Ventures and the building itself) which often caused problems.
We had outgrown the space. At 50 attendees it was okay. At 70 it was warm. At 90+ it was pretty uncomfortable. (The last 2 months at Skyscanner we've had 92 attendees.
As an organiser, delivering beer and pizza, and getting our hands on a projector and screen was kind of a pain.

For a long time however, our hands were tied. We can't afford to pay for a venue that can host 90+ people every month, and TechCube/CodeBase have yet to open a space large enough to host us.
However, Skyscanner recently opened a new space that could host events, and were happy to have us. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better, especially for new attendees and us organisers. Some concerns are immutable: for example it isn't a completely neutral space, which raises some people's hackles. Others, like layout of the room and so on are definitely fixable, and we will be working to improve them.
The Survey

Having heard some concerns about the move, and since it makes sense to check in with the audience, I sent out a survey with a few questions to gauge how the community felt. Here are some responses, with my thoughts:


"It can be hard to hear the speaker"

There are mics available, we're definitely going to get them going next month.


"Didn't like the layout", "Harder to mingle", "Less suitable for networking", "Hard to get to pizza".

We hear you. Next month we're going to try leaving a lot more space available for the start of the night by moving chairs to the side of the room, and spreading the pizza out more. Then when presentations start people can grab a chair.


"Given that Skyscanner are always hiring, I prefer a more independent location", "Could also consider the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation as a venue, even as a one-off. It would be nice to spread around Edinburgh and visit other communities."

Unfortunately there are very few free/cheap event spaces in Edinburgh. ECCI costs about the same/more as our entire beer and pizza budget for the night. There's also a reasonable amount of logistical headache as organisers in running the event in a new space each month, and to be perfectly honest, we just don't have the energy to do that and run a good event.
CodeBase are working on an event space, which we'll definitely look at if/when it becomes available.


"Beginning intros freaked me out and are mainly why I've not been back.", "I like the idea of everybody introducing themselves, but it is getting a bit too big for that to work well"

This is a tough one. Lots of people tell us that they love the intros, and we like to think they really help pull people together and make it feel like a community. But it obviously can be a little daunting for new people too, who we definitely don't want to put off. We'll keep thinking about it, and if anyone has thoughts ideas on this, please let us know!


"The beer choice is awful", "There's not enough beer", "Need more soft drinks"

We definitely want to try and be better at this. Obviously we have financial constraints, but we can probably do better. Marius has been discussing with Douglas (the previous drink organiser) about how we should tweak our order.


Fin

I think that pretty much covers the main concerns. As always, TechMeetup is a community run event, so if you have ideas, or want to speak or help out in some way please email me (phil@latentflip.com). Or drop thoughts in the comments here.
Thanks, Phil & Marius