Meeting HOWTO

The Meeting HOWTO provides some instructions on how to set up meetings in the CouchSurfing meetings page So you want to get some couchsurfers together, here the basics of how to set up your meeting and communicate with other couchsurfers.

Things to know about the Meeting tool

It has the capacity to message those in the meeting group and outside of the meeting group based on your previous Couchsearch! results. These posts & messages are moderated by CS Admins and require time be check so don't plan a meeting for tomorrow and expect your messages to get there in time. The purpose of this moderation is to weed out messages and meetings that violate the Terms of Use which include things such as Spam, harrassment, violating laws, etc.

Before you Create a meeting

Remember that creating a meeting is more about the people your trying to solicit to join your meeting or whom your trying to organize so take a minute to figure out the 6 "W" of any logistical challenge.

• Who's is your meeting intended for?
• What is your purpose in meeting?
• When is the best time to meet?
• Where are you going to meet?
• Why are you meeting?
• hoW are you going to execute the meeting, or get there, or achieve your purpose, or get people to come?

This last point of hoW to get people to come is what the CS meeting tool is it's most useful feature. In conjunction with Couchsearch! the messaging features inside the meeting tool allow you to send this to a specific demographic of couchsurfers that fit your meeting.

In order to use this feature, it's useful to do some thinking followed by some test searches in Couchsearch! in order to find this demographic mix. Each of the search criteria that you do will be automatically saved in your profile and can be referenced later on in the process of meeting messaging.

In addition to the above it is also useful to search out any groups that might be part of this demographic mix. It's recommended that you join the groups that fit your profile as members of "My Groups" can be selected in your messaging options.

One final point is to search the meetings page for the meeting you are trying to create to confirm that you are not duplicating someone else's work.

How to create a Meeting

Assuming you have figured out the 6 "W" of your meeting you can then create a meeting. The following information is required.

• Meeting Name
• Meeting Description

It is useful to participatints to fill in the

• Country
• State/Province
• City
• Address
• Directions
• Meeting Summary
• Meeting Begin Date/Time
• Meeting End Date/Time

Beyond the above the following is a list of the default settings of the page.

• Private: No (meaning that this will be a publicly viewable meeting)
• Confirmed: Yes, the meeting will definately happen
• Number of attendees needed: 0 (0 indicateds the meeting is not tentitive)
• Confirm Automatically: Yes
• Meeting Begin Date/Time: will automatically fill in the the current date and time.
• Meeting End Date/Time: will automatically fill in the the current date and time.

Meeting Address

The Meeting Address field should contain information similar to the following

Anytown Park, 555 Someplace NW Street, Anycity, DC, 202-555-5555

Note that this field is not limited to just the street address.

Meeting Photos

A photo can add spice to your meeting and can indicate where and how your meeting can be identified. Note that this is a single photo and is not where you can post after the meeting photos

Meeting Directions

Put the best directions possible to your event. As of right now Couchsurfing does not include something such as Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, or MSN maps. This field will not accept HTML

Meeting Description

The Meeting Description can contain the same html your profile can contain. It is useful to be as exciting and as simple about your plans as is possible. Remember that the point is that people who are searching for meetings need information about what is happening so a one line description is not likely to encourage them to come to the meeting.

Tentitive meetings

Couchsurfing gives you the option to create a meeting that is dependant on the number of attendes. This is the arbitrary number that you say is a critical mass for your meeting and makes it worth while to happen. In order to initiate this function, you'll need to set the following on your meeting management page (or on the create a meeting page when you first create the meeting): Confirmed:

• Set to "No, this meeting is tentitive"

Number of attendees needed:

• set to a number above "0"

Confirm by Date/Time:

• has a deadline date in the mm/dd/yy hh:mm am/pm format

Confirm Automatically:

• set to "Yes" (or no if you'd like to do this manually)

After the Meeting Photos

Once your meeting is done you might want to upload some photos of the event to share with other meeting participants. In order to do this, you'll want to go to your own profile and upload pictures into a new folder. Once you've uploaded photos in your profile, you can go to your settings and select the "Meeting Photos" drop down.

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