Organizing TNG Meet-ups

As Amy's post last week and the subsequent conversation has illustrated, the non-mainstream queer community in DC is looking for opportunities to meet and interact outside of the bar and club scene. So far, TNG staff has organized a monthly bar night at Solly's (next one coming up on October 16) and a hopefully soon-to-be-regular dance party. But it's clear that we could be doing more.

Last week, Zack sent out a call for event organizers. Frankly, the response has been underwhelming. If you have some time and energy to help organize large, non-bar events for TNG, please let us know. We did receive some good comments on those posts suggesting smaller meet-ups, including outdoor activities and such. However, this site's comments structure isn't the best way to organize small groups of people for activities. To meet this need, we've set up an email list for TNG readers to use. For more information, please read on.

I started a similar email list years ago called QUALM (Queers United Against Laughable Mainstream). The list still has a few hundred people on it, but it hasn't been very active lately. Instead of breathing new life into the old list, we've created a Google Group called "tng-meetup" for TNG readers and friends to organize smaller group events. Click, log-in, subscribe and participate.

Other ways to meet new people in DC include volunteering, adventuring, sports, and other meet-up venues.

I'm looking forward to meeting more people through these and other events. Let's "get off the internet" and start making real connections.

(Caveat: I know that Google Groups is probably the least user-friendly email list/group service out there, but it's the one that uses the Google ID login system which, at this point, nearly everyone uses. If you have any problems joining this group/email-list, email me and I'll add you manually.)