MAsT Meeting and Workshop

I had intended to do a blog post before last nights MAsT meeting, but life got in the way.  In a lot of ways I'm really glad I didn't.  The post I would have made before hand would have been very different then the one I'm working on now.  At the time I was super worried and nervous about the whole meeting.  There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong with the night;

• First Meeting in a new space
• Lots of new people coming out to the meeting
• More people then we general get listed as attending,
• Finally some very experienced attendees.

I'm not sure really why I was worried about the last point but I was.  I'll run through all 4 of them point by point. 

First is the new meeting space; Back in December basically all of the local community kink groups learned that our regular meeting space was lost.  The organization that had generously allowed a number of kink/pan-sexual groups to use the space had determined that they had to turn they focus inwards to there own groups.  That meant that a lot of groups had to find new places to meet, a prospect that is still causing problems for some groups.

We were able to arrange space with one of the local colleges.  The price was very reasonable and the space is wonderful.  Of course there were a few small surprises when we got there.  for example the fact that people had to be buzzed in to the building, It also didn't help that the building is something of a maze of hallways. Anyways in the end it worked out fine.  We did determine a few things that we will need to prepare before the next one.  

During the meeting we also put it to those in attendance about the space and asked what they thought off it.  All of the comments were very positive.

Lots of new people coming out to the meeting: It seems that we have had a turn over in membership in someways.  A few of the people we've had coming out since the beginning continue to come out but we have had a lot of new members.  Which honestly is a great thing, A lot of them are also fairly new to the whole lifestyle so they bring with them a lot of excitement and positive energy.  With so many new people it can be hard to predict how a meeting will go.  Will they be willing to take part in discussions or will they stare blankly at you when you try and engage them.

More people then we general get listed as attending: We had close to 67 people listed as Attending or Maybe Attending on Fetlife.  It is also difficult to judge how many people will be attending based on fetlife/facebook events.  You are often lucky to get half of the people listed as attending.  The problem is that you have to plan your event in such a way that you can handle things everyone does show up.

Finally some experienced attendees:  The topic of the night was Scene Designs, and one of those attending had was the author of one of the many blogs and articles that we read in preparation.  It is a little intimidating knowing that the author of some of the source material is in the audience.  I knew going in that they were not the type to interrupt of correct people and such but that didn't change how things felt.

Anyways things turned out great.  We had 38 people out and some amazing discussions.  Everyone got involved and added there own 2 cents to the discussion.  I can't wait for the next meeting.  MAsT as always renews my interest in the lifestyle and excites me.  Anyways it is late or early depending on your point of few and I should hit the sack.