To Give With Out Conditions

TO GIVE WITH OUT CONDITIONS
What is giving with out conditions. I remember when i was a kid there was always a conditions for giving. my mom would be like you do this and i will do that. Even now as I am way older I have had fights with my bros over this. My bro will come in and tell me I will do this for you only if you do that for me. Like I will cook dinner but you must wash the dishes. hehe i mean ya I know this is a no brainier but do you even need to ask. Similar things have come up on a post on meetin the other day. Basically some users said in the post they would donate if I ran the site the way they wanted me to. I will donate if you follow my conditions. The funny thing is I have never asked for a donation ever from anyone. Sure we ask via a message twice a year but i mean really ask. Like personally say hey please give me money. But so fare I have had cities like Portland , Philly , Phoenix and Denver who believe in this idea. They do not give me condition and they let me run the site the way i see fit. I think this is not only liberating but I am truly honored that these people have given to me with out setting any conditions on how I should run things. if they only knew how cheap I was with the money they would know there investment is safe. hehe because I am cheap. Sure i have made some minor mistakes with donation but very minor. Some of my mistakes were also from pressure from others that I should do things the way they wanted me to. For example the convention T-shirts we bought 3 years ago. They cost MEETin a $1000. Sure I ultimately decide to spend the money so the buck stops with me but many others offered to sell them and help take care of this time wise. Low and behold we had someone steal allot of the money and meetin did not sell the t-shirts it needed to make up for this. I learned allot from this. One do not make things bigger then they have to be. Now I always tell chapters that want to buy t-shirts for there city USE pre-order. I also learn i should not cave into pressure to do things the way a small group of people ask for it to be done. I always want to make sure everyone is satisfied and happy and some times this just can not be done. I know now I can not make everyone happy. There will always be someone who is mad thing were not done the way they wanted it done. I also learned when it comes to volunteers why many have done wonderful things some may say i will do this for you and then walk away and not finish what they set out to do leaving me holding the bag. I did end up making all of MEETin money back over time. I have been giving a free t-shirt away to large donors effectively making all money back into the MEETin coffer.

NEVER FOLLOW THE MOB WHEN IT COMES TO BUSINESS
Running a free all volunteer site is allot harder then it looks. I get people all of the time willing to help me out. But the big question is will these people have the same dedication in one years time. Most of the time its no. I mean I understand we are not paying them. They do it out of the kindness of there heart. But I must be careful not to implement new work thinking they will do it to only have it fall back on me. For example I could get some IT guy that says let make MEETin run on Linux and not windows its better. But then I ask who is going to maintain this after you leave. I guess my rule of thumb has to be never over extend the site past what i can do myself because I am not a 100% sure I can relay on others to the degree I can rely on myself. Many people have wanted to turn meetin into a full time job not just for me but for a crew of people. Let's set up committees and make more work and more work and do this and do that. The only question I have these days is A) why does it have to be so hard do we really need to create more work? and B) what happens when i set it up as you say and this talented person is no longer able to help out. ( who knows the real job gets busy the mom gets sick and you have to move ) all kinds of reasons come up for why people can no longer help. I guess I only relay on myself. I know this limits things. But so fare I do not see a better way with out having full time employees and that would cost allot of money. Why do we need 20 people in the back office doing reports and trying to figure this out and make up that rule. Frankly i say keep it simple. The people have done wonderful thing with MEETin with just some basic rules. No need to put more rules on anyone or create more work. Just keep things simple.

KEEP MEETin EVENTS FREE
The beauty of MEETin events is they are always free. Sure there are some pay events that people do at cost. Some times this is very un-clear what these at cost are. I look at it this way if it cost to much from your point of view then do not go. Its always a safe bet. But what happens when an event planner decides to take on the risks of doing some costly event on there own. We had one year in DC one new years. The message board lit up. Let do a fancy New Years party we will rent out a club and dress up all nice. I did not like this idea to much myself because I was worried some of my friends would not be able to afford it. But I kept this to myself and supporting it by telling all of my friends you got to go this is going to be awesome. The message board went crazy. All kinds of people said this will be great. So one of the event planners decided to rent a club set it all up and sell tickets. well as time went by apparently the person setting this up over estimated how many people would buy tickets. i think they were a $100 maybe a little less or more. I told all of my friends to go not sure what else i could have done. I heard later that this person lost money and after so wanted me to peddle calendars with the MEETin logo on it to help make this money back. I felt bad. but frankly you have to understand not everyone will pay a $100 for a party. There is a market that will and one that will not. Its easy to get people to go to a free party the rules change when you have to pay a $100. I did learn a lesson that year. keep events free if you want everyone to come if not then just expect some people will not be able to make it. Also move the big pay for new years events off meetin. Post them on an e-vite endless you are really sure enough people are down for it. Frankly it was an awesome new years. I mean like I think 80 people went instead of the 100 they needed. It was an awesome time just felt bad for people taking these risks on this event as I think they lost money. because we do not use donation money for one cities events. That would not be fare to other cities.

I have learned quit allot about people through running all of these chapters. Just think of the minor issues one city may have and then amplify it by 90 cities and you will see my point. but do not get me wrong I love seeing all of the great things we do and the words of encouragement always keeps not just me going but the many others who spend there time making this all work.

IN CLOSING
In closing on this I must say I have met some of the most awesome people who have given with out ever asking for something in return. Not just donations I am talking about posting events , welcoming people and opening up there hearts and minds to strangers. Sure there are some who post events because they want to brag that they had the best event or they do it to be praised by others. But I am talking about the people who just do it for the fun of it. Who do it with out ever asking for anything in return from the people they do it for. These people make me smile.