Starting a Bi Group - Have you done this? Do you have suggestions?

[Snafu]

Hello. We in Portland OR haven't had much in the way of a stable bi community for awhile. Two other women and myself just started a new group. One of the gals was savy enough to make us a forum http://www.gettingbipdx.com/
We have our second official meeting today, but are still looking for a permanant meeting spot.

Anyway, when I went to the International Conference on Bisexuality in Toronto there was a wonderful workshop on Creating Bi Community. And the guy putting it on had a million wonderful ideas. I am going to go back and consult my notes.

But have any of you done this? What have you learned? Good ideas/ and bad? Or if you have attended a group like this before, what did they do right and what did they do wrong? Thanks for all your thoughts! G

[Huntergh103182]

I would like to see one in Virgina or the metro DC area

[FalconAngel]

We have a pretty functional Bi community down here. Some of our group are on this site, even.

Here's the link to our group. The mods there should be able to give you a lot of useful input.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SouthFloridaBisexualCommunity/?yguid=69286932

[swag85]

I tried to in London ontario, but it never really took off the ground. i had a place, and times, and support of local gay clubs. but it never really ammounted to much i had 3 meetings but only really got around 2 people. it was good while it lasted. but we all kind of decided it wasnt what we wanted to do. i wish it had workded, as there was nothing like that in london. there was in the past but stopped as well. recently i have moved to victoria BC, and there is a wonderfull array of comunities, and support. run by very great people. my advice. is advertinse, advertise, advertise. the more people see it the more likely they are going to use the service. and its the people who want to do it but are ashamed, or embarresed, who need it the most. and that was who i tried to reach out to. to try to tell them its ok. and be happy of who you are. make it interesting too, the one thig we did as a group was have a camp trip. it was a blast even with only about 5 of us. the 2 who chose to come to our group did say they were helped alot even just from the camp trip, with us. and that is great when you hear someone was helped by what you tried to do. just my :2cents:

[ThatSubliminalKid]

Advertise a lot. Don't expect to get a lot of members all at once. Also some people may go there once and then decide not to go to a meeting again.

[swag85]

Advertise a lot. Don't expect to get a lot of members all at once. Also some people may go there once and then decide not to go to a meeting again.

very very true!

[Snafu]

I am advertising a lot! I have it on craigslist and am constantly updating and changing the posting. It is also in the local gay paper or at least their website if it ever works...

We had 12 people to our official second meeting. We scheduled several social events. We gave out a volunteer assignment to a few people. We have 47 people who are signed up to use our website, although there are less than that who are actively posting. And our website has only been up 3 weeks.

It seems to me we need to get everyone involved so that we don't lose momentum and can get everyone to have ownership. And that we should post on some of the other alternative papers/websites that arent' the gay ones.

Not sure what else to do...besides plan the bbq that I agreed to do!

[softfruit]

Been running one for about a decade now and it's thriving :D

Most of the useful tips I have on this I wrote up in a piece for BCN magazine, which rather than reiterate here, you can grab from http://www.bicommunitynews.co.uk/resources.html - the "A to Z" pdf. Most of it probably travels across the Atlantic OK... :)

[Snafu]

Thank you! I'll check it out!