The Offline Club

This is [Meetup](https://www.meetup.com). Meetup has obviously not aged well, but this is mostly due to changes in ownership and leadership. It’s original mission of “a Meetup Everywhere about Most Everything” is pretty much exactly what The Offline Club seems to be seeking.

I think they’ll find a lot of the same challenges:

    1. Finding space to have events
    2. Ensuring that people who said “I’m going” actually end up going. 
    3. Bootstrapping groups such that when I stumble upon The Offline Club, I can signup for something relevant to me, happening a short time from now. 
    4. Keeping organizers willing to continue hosting events
    5. Keeping away organizers who see it as lead gen for their sales job

Edit: On second look, this is different than Meetup in that it’s not centered around a specific topic … except for being “offline” together, which obviously could create other opportunities for hobbies, etc.

As an alternative:

* Go ballroom dancing. * Go square dancing. * Go to the library and read their historical non-fiction primary sources (letters and journals). * Go to church (I'm serious, even if you are an atheist). * Go roller skating at a rink. * Go ice skating. * Go paint balling. * Go to a water park. * Go to your HOA/City/County board/commissioners meetings. * Go to your state legislature meetings. * Go to a volunteer firefighters informational meeting. * Go to a plant/flower (orchid/African violate) growers club. * Go to a sewing club. * Go to a fishing class or just fish. * Go to a hunting/gun class or just hunt/shoot.

These places already exist, they're your local game stores! Show up, play games with other people. If you like competition most host official tournaments for various TCG's and table top war-games. These tournaments usually forbid devices while playing, since they can be used to gain unfair advantage, so you are forced to be offline by default. (Plus it's considered rude to be on your phone during a match.)

I attended one of their events a few months ago in Amsterdam. You have to hand in your phone when entering the venue and get it back afterwards. I spent around 2 hours reading my kindle in silence. It was really nice being in a space where everyone had put their phones away, but paying 10 euros for the privilege of doing so means I'm unlikely to turn up regularly when I could just go to a cafe and put my phone on airplane mode for free.

This reminded me of the Stoop Coffee post from awhile back. Many are yearning for these analog connections and trying to crack the code for making it deliberate, inviting and low barrier to entry. I don’t think it’s just a reaction to everyone being online — books like Bowling Alone in the late 90s were calling out other trends leading to disconnect.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43473618

I think there is a target market for this, and it might seem silly to anyone outside of that market, but it shouldn't.

If you're a screen addict living in these cities, paying an entry fee could be reassuring because you know that you're supposed to be there. The same goes for having a non-skills based activity, because you can't screw it up.

Compare that to a free and/or skills-based gathering[1], where you end up paying with social capital (which you don't currently have), and staying home with the screen becomes all that more enticing.

1: I help run a monthly pinball tournament locally, and we've taken deliberate steps to favor socialization over competition, which has been wildly successful, but there are still those for whom the skills-based activity is too much. I feel the same about dancing.

I like it, but I find it ironic that it's just https://lu.ma/ embedded on a website.

The London page: https://lu.ma/embed/calendar/cal-8hcK7emYCS5LbFl/events?lt=l...

Looks fun. But £12.50 to read in silence? Am I missing something?

Makes me think about starting a non-profit club at a physical location. Some comfortable chairs etc. Just a quiet place to go read or be in the proximity of others. Perhaps with rules about what’s allowed:

- Members only (guests have to join)

- No disturbing others

- Quiet voices only

- No soliciting

- No electronic devices

I have created one app called Connective, kind of the same. People can create and join events near

PlayStore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.connectify... AppStore: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/connectiveapp/id6624294792

Maybe is not the best, and I'm still working to improve it and add new functionalities. The major problem now is we don't have much users, so there is few content.

Feel free to use it and if you have any questions, please let me know

This looks like Meetup or Facebook events. I'm not entirely sure what the need for another platform is and won't use it myself to organize my events as others have larger user bases, but the website looks quirky and fun.

So, Meetup without the baggage (i.e. WeWork)? I'll take it. I made quite a few friends on Meetup back in the day attending and running group events in NYC.

I used to think I didn't like clubs and societies. Then I joined a local sailing club, and I love it. Lots of nice people, all with a shared interest, but many other non-shared interests that make it even more interesting!

I would definitely recommend looking for clubs like this.

Original poster here. I have no affiliation to it. Just found it, guessed it will spark some interest here, which it did. I thought about going to one event in Berlin, but it's in a hipster area.

With so many people in a room ... it almost feels like being online :)

  There was a dream that was having a social life. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile.

  -- Marcus Aurelius

It's half the reason people aren't social. They try so hard to "schedule a meetup" and the meetup becomes work so people stop hanging out.

You're just supposed to show up at someone's house and do shit.

You don't make friends by agenda. You have cool experiences , build trust and develop a bond.

I got excited when I saw the title, thinking it was local-first software advocacy. But I guess if local-first software advocacy gets me excited, then maybe I should turn off the screen and touch some grass.

https://www.theludditeclub.org/

I was expecting some kind of joke that the website was not available

bro i was hoping "the offline club" was a bunch of apps that just worked without logins radios rest APIs and all the other stuff that broke software

Site is up.

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I like how this is an online article