How to Start a Chapter

More advice? Feel free to add advice on the Google Doc here: http://hckhc.kr/eVE1RD


Planning Your First Meetup
• Set up a Meetup page. Email us at meetup at hackshackers dot com. We’ll set one up for you that’s location-specific, like meetupnyc.hackshackers.com, though some groups have used Eventbrite and Facebook too.
• Choose a location. We want lots of socializing at the first Meetup, so we generally have picked a bar, though a private home can be nice. Make sure there is alcohol.
• Pick a date. Ideally the first Meetup should go announced three to four weeks ahead of time to get publicity momentum. Two at a minimum.
• First Meetup should be free! Hacks/Hackers usually tries to pick up the cost of ordering appetizers, but then we do cash bar. We find that is a nice balance. If you need some startup money, let us know. We might have some money (not much) we can funnel to startup chapters, but $50 can go a long way in a bar toward appetizers.
• Publicize. Tweet, email, Facebook it. Another good approach is to share with other local Meetup groups: Good ones include Ruby on Rails, Python, Drupal, WordPress. Make sure to get a balance of hacks and hackers.
• Keep the agenda low key. Keep talks minimal except for intros in the first Meetup. Let people mill. Let them know they can contact you with ideas, and especially if they can provide venues.
• Take pictures/video. Upload them onto the Meetup site afterwards. People like to tag photos, we’ve discovered.

Checklist for Supplies

• Name tags. Don’t forget the name tags! (We have, d’oh!) If you want to get cutsy, you can get red ones for hacks and blue ones for hackers. (Though business people also wander in there too, and we’re not sure what color to give them.)
• Signup forms. Paper is fastest, we discovered. iPad/laptops are fancy but slow. So we created a pdf form [download from Scribd] for you to print out and photocopy. It takes time on the backend to fill them out. And yes, they need to fill them out even if they signed up on the Meetup group. Meetup does not give us their email addresses.
• Pens. Make sure you have enough of them — at least 10. Buy them at bulk at Staples/Office Depot if you don’t have them lying around the house.

Checklist for Online Stuff

• Email addresses. Meetup questionnaire should include people’s email addresses, with an assurance that we will keep it private. Meetup does not give us access to people’s email addresses, so you should try to build your own.
• Logos. Logos are at http://hackshackers.com/organizers/logos. If yours is not there yet email Beth Davidz at beth at hackshackers dot com, with your request

• Twitter account. We have been generally doing @HacksHackersXXX, where XXX is a three-letter or less abbreviation of your locale — NYC, BOS, SEA, CHI, DC, ATX. Note the capital “H”s when you register, else some people will read it at hack-shackers. In some cases, where the city name starts with an “S,” like St. Louis, chapters have opted for the XXXHacksHackers to avoid the hiccough of the double S.
• Meetup/Eventbrite/Facebook page where you can invite people to RSVP and reinvite them to future events. These all have their advantages and disadvantages. We started out doing Meetup groups, but may change in the future.
• yourcity@hackshackers.com. We need to set you up with a main email address for local addresses, such as nyc@hackershackers.com. Send burt at hackshackers dot com with a request of who should be on what list.
• Hashtag? Our hashtags tend to be of the format #hhXXX, where XXX is your three-letter abbreviation. So #hhnyc, #hhbos, #hhatl, etc.
• Register for the WordPress blog so you can contribute posts about your chapter at http://hackshackers.com/wp-login.php?action=register. Warning: the default level of registration does not allow you to embed fancy things. If you need to do that, let us know to upgrade you.
• Sign up for the organizer Google Group. It’s at http://groups.google.com/group/hackshackers/


Follow Up
• Plan more events. Try to do things at least once a month, whether social or talks or a hackathon.
• Cover charge. For later events, a small cover ($5 to $10 if there are snacks) is OK, we’ve decided, though that doesn’t work for some city cultures. In New York and other places, we find it helps keep people vested in the group, and we prefer it to a regular dues system. It also covers the persistent low-level expenses (photocopying, name tags) of running local Hacks/Hackers chapters. Then again, we don’t want this cost to be prohibitive, so if this is troublesome, we encourage folks (like students) to email us to ask for exemptions in exchange for volunteering at the Meetups.


Expenses

We have set all Hacks/Hackers Meetups groups to link to the Hacks/Hackers master Paypal account, which we use for reimbursements. Please keep receipts. It’s easiest for us to pay you back via Paypal. We track spreadsheets. If it’s a file, please have information in chapter-YYYYMMDD-$amount-reason format, so we can eyeball it. Examples: nyc-20101002-$300-banhmi, boston-20101002-$50-coffee.


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