Issues with Meetup and Matt Kraemer

[Tim Penhey]

Hi everyone,

Back at the end of last year George Sealy had organised to get his company Blue Jeans to sponsor Code Craft. This sponsorship was paying the membership dues for meetup.

I felt uncomfortable about asking George to just trust me with some credit card details to enter, and meetup aint great about having someone other than the primary organiser pay the dues. I tried to pass the ownership to George, but before he accepted it, my time as organiser lapsed and that led to the email dump that went out to the group saying I had stepped down. Some of you reached out at the time asking about it, and I responded that we were trying to pass ownership over (https://groups.google.com/g/codecraft-dunedin/c/Jsr-czsQmAM).

Unfortunately, as it turns out, due to meetup's wonderful rules, I was removed as organiser (because of lack of payment) before George was able to take ownership and set up the new payment. However since the emails stopped, I thought nothing of it.

Fast forward to recently, Rachel and I noticed that the head organiser of the code craft meetup group was now Matt Kraemer, and he had updated the notes to say that his company was sponsoring code craft. We reached out asking to have the ownership transferred, but he declined, and what's more, after that engagement he removed all other co-organisers, Thomi, Chris, Bob, George, and others, from the meetup.

No one apart from Matt can now organise a meetup. No one can start a discussion with the group. There are only 190 odd folk on the google group, and over 570 on the meetup. Most of those people aren't going to see this message.

I'm asking for Matt to pass ownership over to George Sealy as was initially intended. If this doesn't happen, we'll be looking for some different organisation tool.

I think it is also worthwhile taking this time to think about what we want out of code craft as a group. What sort of talks are most interesting? What really engages people?

As a side note, we have been asked not to use the Polytech rooms while we are at alert level 2 with covid. Although there is currently no way for us to create any event for September anyway.

Tim

[Bex Twemlow]

Tim, Rach

You guys have been the lifeblood of CodeCraft for as long as I/We have been around. This drama sounds terrible and not ok at all. If you are seeking a supporter we would be very happy to help out. We also are very conscious we could/should play a far bigger role in this groups future. As a first up suggestion - let's organise a get together (when safe) to chat about what, who, how, when and why.......

Love your work!

Bex Twemlow Founder/Chief Commander e. b...@firebrand.nz p. +64 3 477 3473 m. +64 21 876 200 w. firebrand.nz

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[Laszlo (Laca) Peter]

Hey Tim, Rachel (and everyone),

I'm also hoping that Matt will reconsider his position. Taking over the meetup account seems pretty pointless, it's really just a collection of meetup user names, not a community. The community is made up of the people who organise the meetups, give or listen to presentations, go to the pub for a chat and beers. Noone can take that over, it's just not how the force works. But nothing is stopping us from carrying on the community without that meetup account. Yes, a lot of people are not on this list, but Dunedin is a small enough place so I'm sure they will find out soon enough what's happening. Since the Polytech rooms won't be available, why don't we come together at the pub in September and talk about the future of CodeCraft (among other things)?

Finally, allow me to join the chorus thanking you and the other organisers for all your work so far, please keep Code Craft going :)

Laszlo

On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 9:38 PM Tim Penhey <t...@penhey.net> wrote:

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[Mike Mackenzie]

This is definitely not what I expected at all when I opened this. Absolutely ridiculous - you folks have been running it and pouring your blood and tears into it and then this happens? I can't even begin to think of how you folks feel right now.

Yeah, good one Matt. Sure did a great thing for the community removing the people that have kept this going for so long.

I still think perhaps Zoom/Google meetups is the way to go. I have been trailing it in my Slack: https://developnz.herokuapp.com/  - could be worth a try?

Mike

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/codecraft-dunedin/CAEM0KiNO-U-BeBvW--mB-_pV%3DZDpK%3D_%3D-EFJ27Tk%3DUX1Rf9hjQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Nicholas Sherlock]

WTF, this is ridiculous. Would be very interested to see Matt come here and explain what he thinks he's achieving by doing this.

Nicholas Sherlock

[Mariusz Nowostawski]

Hi,

 

Just an idea

The previous co-organisers from meetup could joinly email tech support of meetup.com explaining that one of the co-organisers have conducted a “hostile takeover” of a meetup group, and he has kicked all the co-organisers out. This might not be unique incident of that sort and they might be able to help fixing with the situation.

 

cheers

Mariusz

codecraft alumni ;p

[Bex Twemlow]

agree Nicholas, and for it not to have been addressed in what is now over 24 hours feels terribly wrong.

What can "we" do here?

Bex Twemlow Founder/Chief Commander e. b...@firebrand.nz p. +64 3 477 3473 m. +64 21 876 200 w. firebrand.nz

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 3:00 PM Nicholas Sherlock <n.she...@gmail.com> wrote:

WTF, this is ridiculous. Would be very interested to see Matt come here and explain what he thinks he's achieving by doing this.

Nicholas Sherlock

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[Rachel Saunders]

Hi Mariusz,

We did that and Meet Up's position is that it is a group issue.  They are the tech system and where there is no failure of the systems they won't get involved. 

Cheers,

Rachel. 

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[Rachel Saunders]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the support that has come our way via various mediums.

I think the key things are:

1. We decide as a group that we are going to keep meeting as a community.

2. We get away from Meet Up and specifically the Code Craft Meet up. I'm going to leave the group soon but others can do as they wish.  I see that my email to the Code Craft meet up group did not go through so I'm guessing that Matt has blocked it or taken away my right to send them. 

3. I'm going to communicate to various stakeholders that I am no longer going to be associated with the group.  Mostly to explain my absence. I'm not about shit slinging and I'm not going to start now.  But there will be a lot of very confused people wondering where I went and I want to maintain the relationships I have with those people.  If you know of anyone who is on Meet Up but not this group can you please tell them I have been locked out of helping with the group not by my own volition or wish.  

4.  See the opportunity!  We can evolve, do more and be more. Let's not focus on the negative. 

Again, thanks for the well wishes and support.  If you all want me to keep working for you, I am happy to keep the ethos of our community going.  

Let's discuss this Tues Sept 1st at Eureka.  I'll book space for 5.30pm. 

Hope to see you there to talk future plans. 

R. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/codecraft-dunedin/CAFfMtuhUPOAhJXua7qK96tzz5fCqSuuv1%3Ddaf%3DtfhWpeG3D9Sw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Richard Ory]

Hi All,

This is very sad and very much unexpected.

I can’t imagine what could bring someone to do this with their own friends and community.

I’m not sure this could be fixed, but one thing for sure that this is a small town and soon everybody will know what happened. 

I’ll follow you guys where ever you go ;)

My respect is yours. 

I’m leaving the meet up group now...

Richie

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[Mike Mackenzie]

That's an absolutely pathetic response from them.  (Meetup.com)

What if you're a big community, and someone goes crazy and removes everyone then uh, that's a hostile takeover. It's not right. They'd probably have a better response if we were bigger.

Bugger 'em. We can still do this via zoom or google meets.

There's one I've kept an eye on it's development: https://colloq.io/ someone would have to check it out and see if it works for us or not. There's also https://www.mixily.com/ which I think I prefer - simple, and free.

Sorry I can't help more.

Warmly,
Mike (veb)

[Rachel Saunders]

I doubt we are going to sort everything in one hit.  But here's the event link to Tuesday.  Please share with those on Meet Up who might not otherwise get the event.  Let's celebrate that this weird event is getting us all talking!!! 

Code Craft September 1st 2020.  5.30pm till 7pm at Eureka. 

https://www.mixily.com/event/474392632615149471

Mike, took your advice about Mixily.  Giving it a whirl. :)  

Happy for those who can't make it to email me or ping for a coffee or zoom chat if you'd like to let me know your thoughts.  Love connecting with you all. 

Rachel

rac...@penhey.net

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[Mike Mackenzie]

Heh. Thanks Rachel, I'll come to Eureka. Should hopefully be more fun than somber! I'm sure we can get everything going again. 😊

Mike

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[Matt Kraemer]

Hello Everyone,

Please accept my apologies for not responding to your messages on this google group. I've always just used the app.

Here is what is going on. My company, CodeRight Limited paid the membership dues to meetup late last year when Tim didn't pay them. The company did this because it was happy to be the sponsor for marketing reasons and to position ourselves as a major employer of software devs in Dunedin. There is no animosity towards the other co-organizers. Rachel organized the August meetup with no problems. The issue was that Rachel started blasting me with orders that I need to transfer the meetup back to her and reinstate Blue Jeans as the sponsor. CodeRight Limited is the sponsor of the CodeCraft meetup and as long as Rachel and Tim and anyone else is Okay with that then they can be co-organizers and CodeRight is happy to stay a quiet background leader.

Okay, now back to you guys,

Matt Kraemer

[Laszlo (Laca) Peter]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for responding to the group.

Sponsoring a community group without strings attached is really nice, but that's not what happened. You can't just declare yourself the sponsor and "leader" against the will of the group and without any consultation. The founders and organisers of this group had a plan in place for the meetups. You went behind their back and hijacked the account for your personal marketing purposes, then proceeded to lock them out when they didn't like that.

Imagine if, say, the Highlanders let their domain lapse because their domain registrar sucked and that was the easiest way to transfer it to somewhere else. Then I used the opportunity to snap up their domain and put up a website that looks like theirs but says that they are proudly sponsored by my humble self (I'm paying for the domain after all!). They are welcome to add content to the website though, I'll just lead them quietly from the background. I'd make a lot of people very angry and rightly so!

My suggestion: kindly return the meetup account to its rightful owners and let's put this drama behind us.

Thanks

Laszlo

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/codecraft-dunedin/0689caa7-9223-4231-943b-b7c024bf5cc9n%40googlegroups.com.

[Thomi Richards]

Hi Matt,

On Thu, 27 Aug 2020 at 10:18, Matt Kraemer <workin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Here is what is going on. My company, CodeRight Limited paid the membership dues to meetup late last year when Tim didn't pay them. The company did this because it was happy to be the sponsor for marketing reasons and to position ourselves as a major employer of software devs in Dunedin. There is no animosity towards the other co-organizers.

Your actions are causing significant animosity and friction. If your goal is to generate good will towards yourself or your employer, this is not the way to do it. Whether or not you intended this to happen is irrelevant - folks here have expressed how your actions have affected them, the choice is now yours: you can return control of the meetup group to the folks who have organise codecraft for close to a decade, or keep control and cause this community to fracture. Either way, your actions here will be highly visible for the foreseeable future.

 

Cheers,

--

Thomi Richards

[Matt Kraemer]

It isn't right to say I stole anything from anyone. Meetup needed a sponsor and a new organizer and I stepped up and paid. Then covid happened.

Blue Jeans doesn't have a right to be sponsor without paying promptly.

Rachel and Tim can both be co-leaders if they request to be.

There is no animosity here.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/codecraft-dunedin/CAEM0KiMvVh2%3Dq%2BzRLBeNgdothfnzN8mO5iL59uiw1rPUfQRt%2BA%40mail.gmail.com.

[mjb]

Matt,

Thank you for fronting up to explain your side of the situation.

However, I have to agree with Laszlo that what you've done is not in line with the intentions of Rachel and Tim, and the rest of the meetup organisers. It's also not in the best interests of the group. All you are achieving is the alienation of group members, which will ultimately drive people away, and fracture and destroy the friendly inclusive nature of Code Craft.

Sometimes, you can't just do what you want and expect people to go along with it - My suggestion is also that you return the meetup account to the rightful owners.

Mike.

[Matt Kraemer]

I'm happy to reinstate Tim and Rachel as organizers and I'm happy to keep paying the bills. There is nothing else I want.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/codecraft-dunedin/d62604ae-cd91-4203-a06b-e7680daada5cn%40googlegroups.com.

[mjb]

That sounds great Matt, please do so. When the time is right, I'm sure a discussion could be had about the source of ongoing sponsorship and payment.

Thanks,

Mike