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Monthly 248AM Meetups?

Elevation Burger approached me recently and offered to let me takeover their Al Bida’a location once a month. I could basically host any kind of event I wanted as long as it wouldn’t get them shutdown and me deported (so sadly no local winemakers meetup and no speed dating event). I’ve been trying to brainstorm and see what I could do, I’m not great at organizing things and socially awkward in general so not sure if thats the perfect skill set for something like this. I can choose between their indoor space upstairs our their outdoor space.

elevation

So, I figured I’d ask you guys for ideas, what kind of event could I host once a month that you would be interested in attending? I held a 248AM meetup back in 2006 and 35 people attended which was pretty cool. It might be an interesting way for people to meet new people? I don’t know I’m horrible at this. If anyone has any ideas let me know below.

64 replies on “Monthly 248AM Meetups?”

Ideas:

1) Board games such as Scrabble, Bingo, Monopoly, Uno. I used to organize that back in college in the US. You’d be surprised how many college kids actually came to that event.
2) The all popular poetry/short story open mic.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got right now.
– H

Something different every month… One day make a Q&As with 248am, then a bloggers meeting, potluck, movie night, toastmaster event… etc

They all seem to need some extra efforts from your side anyway…

Arrange arts exhibitions every month, welcome the artists to come with their work. Every month can have different theme e.g. water colours one only…portraits only….landscape only….calligraphy etc…

Host a game night where contestants can win vouchers or other prizes from Elevation Burger. There can be quizzes, charades, pictionary, password etc., it can be a lot of fun.

Hi Mark!

Board game night would be nice to get to know people… Although Monopoly usually ends in violence and long held grudges. Haha.
Mad Hatter’s Tea Party might be fun. Easy to wear a hat, or design a creative one.

Mark this is a great opportunity you got and you must take full usage of it 😉 so here’s some ideas from myside;

1. Hasan’s Board Game ideas i like so we could have once a month board game n tutorial for beginners too.

2. An Evening of Discussion – Movie or Gaming.

3. Informative Presentations

4. Talk about latest book release

5. Brainstorming more meet up events and things we can do in Q8

well for now these are all i could think of.. hope there’s more i can come up with 🙂

I say make the first month event a meetup where the point of it is to figure out what to do the rest of the months 🙂

There is a lot if things to do such as games nights, ralents show, speak up ( it was a nuce idea that every ine has 20 min to speak and discuss something with public)… Etc but what i think the most important is to gather first and in this gathering you will shocked of the numbers of ideas you’ll find.

Something different every month is a pretty good idea.
Why don’t you start with a comedy night.
Call on to comedians, they get to showcase their talent.
Win! Win! For everybody. Tape them. May be you can start a YouTube series out of it.
All the best.

Hey, I think a trivia night and a debate night would be great to start with, and then we can take it from there. Obviously for the debate night you should stay well away from controversial topics but things like climate change/pollution or how to deal with current problems like traffic, or maybe we can discuss how we can start a good initiative together for the betterment of society, sky’s the limit really.

I like the art showcase idea, also how about a Muso’s night- fledgling newby musicians get up for a 15 minute set each- not too long because, 1) their style might not appeal to everyone, 2) they might be actually pretty terrible, 3) no pressure to preform long drawn out sets. If they are pretty good, they can come back after and play for the rest of the night if they want to : )

Knowing some of the outspoken people who comment on your blog, how about one debate night a month? The major rules which MUST be followed is, it must be humourous and you can NEVER be nasty (about the subject, your opposition, or the state, ovbiously.)
There is too much seriousness in the world and not enough humour, so the spirit should be light, witty, and fun, and still get your point across.

Actually scratch that idea. I’m not sure it could be done.

I think you want the people coming to your event to go out with something useful while still being fun, e.g. educate people about alienated cultures and ideas by incorporating with a board game

Start a meet up group on meetup.com or eventbrite or both ! I’m active on meetup and always attend interesting themes related to travel and adventure, you could set up a blogging 101 sessions for people who are interested to start up their own thing, and then mix it up and do events hosted by some of the cool people you know that will have interesting things to share about what ever subjects (Presenting Live on a screen or through skype if they are really famous) I would definitely attend if the subject is interesting to me
Good luck !

Live podcast w/ an audience. With the more interesting people of the country as guests.

No need to thank me.

Oh yeah, and speed dating in the back.

If you look for presentations I’m volunteering to do Leading with your personality — which includes the DISC analysis. Am also willing to speak about franchising.

I honestly wouldn’t want to come for a presentation by some “interesting” people… A group activity with everybody in it would be better.

And no book/movie/Kuwait discussion there’s already that divan or sirdab place.

How about figuring out a Business or investment plan so that anyone can invest with their money with you for a period of time and get profit from it… for Example : 248AM Designer Building or Mall Project’s ? lol you might be the first blogger to have your Blog Name transitioned to a multi million $ construction firm…

If you plan to choose this idea… please employ me 🙂

Regards

Hey Mark,

How about a paint night? I did a couple in Toronto called paint and wine night where a local artist would teach a group of people to replicate a painting that the artist had created.
Obviously, we would not have wine, but we could have appetizers and drinks.
This would be beneficial for the restaurant and for the local artist we have here in Kuwait to get more exposure and for the people attending to enjoy a group activity and meet new people.

Bring over some of your friends and let them speak about their fields of work or study + any funny stories about you. A random subject/speaker every week. E.g. Fahad could discuss health issues, Fajer legal issues and Patrick gaming/entertainment issues etc.

Doesn’t matter..open or indoor… It would be great if a group of people could get together and think of a plan as to what things can be done to improve the present state of affairs….Have a constructive discussion 🙂 Just a suggestion

Mark, your strengths are that you have many connections to interesting people and happenings in Kuwait. You bring people together through your blog posts as you seem to attract interesting social news about Kuwait. You are the breath of fresh air that the local news papers are too stuffy to cover. Forget boring games or trying to entertain people with gimmicks; Do what you are already doing on your blog, but offer a once a month live feature.

Stick with the recurring themes of your blog: innovations in Kuwait, future construction & grand openings, exciting news & cutting edge in the country of Kuwait. If a particular post has gotten a lot of attention, bring in the expert for the people to meet and hear speak.

Have a speaker give a short talk– 20 minutes — on the topic or news or their specialty. This sudo-TED-style talk will draw people in to the event. But, in the end, it is an excuse for 2:48 readers to come together regularly and socialize and meet people. It is a better form of what internations.org tries to do in Kuwait and fails because of the lack of diversity, & quality of participants.

I’d say to keep it casual and low-key. The blog itself will be the promotion. It shouldn’t require much more work or effort from what you are currently already doing.

Please be in touch with me if this advice helps or if we can brain storm. I am hear for you.

HUMOR, should be the leading thing, That’s for sure because fun is an underrated currency. It really is. Having said that:

Don’t start unstructured, it will die; it always does. People come people go, and then nobody goes.

Maybe you could do something like a monthly theme, based on the idea of
ELEVATING YOUR SKILLS in:

– Making 3 min. podcasts (it should be the first ‘work shop’ bc. we want a podcast of every meeting, which should then be placed on your blog) and then, once we mastered that skill, which I can help with):

In random order:

– CookIng Lebanese;
– (Creative) writing;
– Finding good or better wasta;
– Blogging;
– Juggling
– Decorating a Xmas tree (god forbid);
– Writing good poems (god forbid);
– Have a better life in Kuwait;
– Have a better life, period;
– Street dancing;
– Web designing;
– Understanding the region;
– Writing a business plan;
– Reading books;
– Stuffing dead animals;
– Doing board games;
– Being a good soldier;
– Understand fashion;
– Survive a kidnap;
Etc. etc.

You’d invite a speaker for max 15 minutes to introduce the subject. But the speaker must be a really good speaker bc. the capital rule is: the most interesting subjects can be killed by bad speakers and vice versa.

If you need any help, contact me; I’d be happy to help. Winemaker-wise we can meet afterwards, on our terrace, 5 mins. from Elevation Burgerrrrrr).

how about each person brings his homely food and shares about the food and interesting facts about his native…it could educate many and also make people plan a vacation to such places..

or how about brainstorming on ways to make Kuwait interesting, finding ways to make the current industries in Kuwait more better than the ones that are in other Arab countries..

a game of musical chair…we can have live music…

Different themes for different months:
Spelling bee nite
Scrabble & scramble nite
An evening of bridge
Dumb charades nite
Salsa under the stars nite
Get your own non alcoholic mocktail nite
Mix n match n socialise nite
Book chapter reading nite
A Cineclub nite hosting Farookh Abdel Aziz
A dads’ and sons nite, mums and daughter’s nite and various combinations permutations, thereof.
An airline crew night followed by getting tight with what they usually have in their boots nite
and finally,
A David Guetta and mixology nite.

Some great ideas here.

I like the board games – everyone is actually actively participating/interacting rather than passively watching something.

If there’s enough interest maybe a WordPress meetup like they have in some other cities?

Some of the music stuff sounds good (if it doesn’t get you booted out da country).

Bingo night, anyone?

Also, I quite fancy the meet the pre invasion residents gathering to exchange notes & stories of life back then and now. Actually,,it might be a fun activity to have people talk about life and living in Kuwait in the 50s, 60s, 70s and the rocking 80s (with photo collages, TV and radio bytes and all).

Hi Mark;

I think what would be great, is inviting all the marketing people in Kuwait and connect them together, since they can share ideas and support each other and maybe get to find free lancers to support in different Marketing activities am sure they are plenty of talented people that can help in brain storming. They can build case studies and support each others based on real life examples.

Think out of the box or Kuwait Creative Minds.

It will be fun , creative , social gatherings.

Regards,

Eddie

We all need such meetings to refresh our skilla have fun and learn what are the new marketing trends in kuwait and we can help each other in creating awareness for all our brands or new projects. KUWAIT Brain Stormers

do something good with your youth time and energy. choose a different charity every month and create awareness and fundraising; start with one for animals.

Good ideas in theory. One problem I can foresee is the age groups. There are many people here who are adult working professionals, there is also a ton of high school/middle school kids here too. I can’t see them gelling together well at all.

I would think ‘fun’ is the key word. Learning, marketing etc are limiting! Don’t know what kind of network and networking this would require but stand up comedies by people of different nationalities would be a fun thing to see. I’m always surprised by how people can be so funny. Need to find the gems though to keep it upbeat!

I kinda like the idea of someone upstairs that proposed letting the space to nurture home brew talent be it, stand up comedy, singing, dancing or choreography. Groups such as LAPA dance academy from Loyac could lap it up with enthral lung dance performances for all. Equally, by reaching out to various focus groups as, the CAP platform, Creative writers guild, Kuwait Nomads rugby team, Kuwait Little theatre, Cine Club, toastmasters et al, you can up the quality of engagement at these gatherings.

On the sidelines of these activities you may want to consider holding career fairs, car boot sales, farmer’s market and school reunions to amp up the foot falls.

I sincerely wish this fleshes out into something more substantive and captivating. Our best wishes to you and Z!

You can start the first steps to change Salmiya as u have always wanted, one project at a time..

By that you can encourage others to organize similar events elsewhere for urban change

UHM CAN PEOPLE STOP COMING UP WITH BORING EVENTS!

Really? A bloggers meet up? Might as well make it a “Fashionista’ Night. Yeah no.

Discussion night/book club/board games? Yeah no.

How about make an event that needs attention in Kuwait that we don’t usually have.

How about a culture appreciation night? Everyone come and represent your culture! Experience and share each other’s cultural backgrounds, experiences, languages, everything.

Let’s include dance, art, music, and yes we can do that without it being shut down.

Let’s appreciate local talent, get underground artists. And give everyone a turn! Every event is the same people, the same clique, the same performers. Kuwait has soooo much more to show; expats and nationals!

The talent brew idea was brilliant by the way! Contact all the local talents!

For real if we are going to have a discussion night, unless it’s some hard core topic, I might as well go to an AA meeting.

lets organize games such as Mafia or Resisstance it should be really cool since nobody knows each other and a great way to meet people and loads of fun!!!!! 🙂

how about an event where entrepreneurs can pitch their business ideas to investors..a Kuwaiti version of shark tank! im sure mark knows a few cool people with deep pockets to help the start-ups in the country..

This is very easy! Take your blog offline! What does that mean? Look at all the content you share… invite the places you talked about online during that month to be there, exhibit, invite the people who contribute on your blog to give presentations/workshops (loaay & fajer would fit in perfectly to this so would the people from paws or what is k’s path?).

Bring in people who have thoughts and ideas on how to improve kuwait’s urban planning – something you constantly talk about.
You’ve always wanted to shed light on the positive stuff in kuwait and have ideas on how you want to improve kuwait – take that discussion offline. Surround yourself with people who want to do the same. Create a positive impact.

People have several events they can network in, or play games at or whatever other ideas I’m reading here. This is your chance to start making an impact so take the plunge.

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