NJHN has maintained a private Meetup group since December 2006 and we’ve hosted more than 500 events in that time. We’ve grown a lot over the years, and currently have 429 members there. Some have become dues-supporting members of NJHN and we are truly grateful.
However, the cost of organizing the Meetup group has continually increased and we now face an annual cost which is beyond our budget, especially since we have other social media options which are free. And we’ve determined that we have only about a dozen members who have been active in our events in recent years. At least half of the members haven’t visited the group at all in over 5 years.
Therefore, our Board of Directors has decided to permanently close down and cancel our Meetup account before the new price increase takes effect in mid-December. We are not going to turn the group over to a new organizer because it is an NJHN only group.
While it’s true that we could ask our members there to pay dues or make donations to cover the operating cost, there have not been enough active members to make that feasible or fair. It wouldn’t be enough. In addition, we know that many members are now being pressured by Meetup’s new owners to upgrade to a paid membership with Meetup+ and we’ve heard your complaints about that as well.
We recognize that some only use Meetup and not other social media accounts. We’re working to create an RSVP system on our website to work with our event calendar. We’ll share that information with you when it’s ready. We strongly encourage you to sign up for our email list. We send out emails about our upcoming events a few times a month and we’ll include an RSVP button either in those emails or with our events here on our website. We do not share your contact information with anyone and will never sell that information to any third party. We also want you to know that we do not have your email address to contact you directly.
We’ve saved all of the photos posted there over the years, and we want to give anyone who has shared their own photos time to save those in the next 2 weeks if you want.
We regret having to make this decision after 18 years, as many other groups have had to do with the price increase. We hope you’ll follow us to our email list and website. You can also find us on our Facebook and Bluesky accounts.
Finally, we’ve scheduled a Zoom meeting for Saturday, December 7, at 11:00 AM for anyone who wants to discuss this or learn more about how to get updates about our future events. No registration needed.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87850903362?pwd=lS0fJ19dL69LTIu7nG7XdUOAGMOOkE.1
Thank you for being part of NJHN’s Meetup group over the years.
Published 11/24/24