Written by the organizer of this meetup Harry White:
First Cardiff Positive Money Meetup was held on the 2nd Nov 2011.
The turnout was 14 with 2 late apologies for absence due to unforeseen circumstances.
The Meetup was held in a hotel conference room with tv and dvd recorder available. It was a structured meeting with wall mounted useful Positive Money web printouts and with a prepared agenda comprising a welcome and short introductory talk by the coordinator.
This included a report on the Conference highlighting the support of Steve Baker MP and Michael Meacher MP. The effort of both MPs to attempt to organise an all party debate amongst MPs pointing to the urgent need for Monetary reform and their praise of the efforts of Ben Dyson in establishing Positive Money. Michael Meacher MP made a statement that he considered our campaign was the most important initiative, for the good of UK society, being undertaken at this time was reported.
This was followed by a showing of Ben’s DVD “All about the Money”.
A general discussion followed in which all present participated and they were invited to complete a questionnaire giving name and email address to facilitate organisations of future Meetups and local “Spreading the Word” activities. All agreed to write to their MPs, following the Positive Money guidelines, writing to local newspapers, 50% said they would consider talking on call back radio stations and help with talks to local associations.
One criticism was that although highly instructive the DVD “All about Money”, although suitable for home viewing was felt to be too long for showing at a Meetup since it limited the time for general discussion and unfortunately two supporters, due to other commitments, left before it ended and so missed out on the discussion..
A supporter from Swansea agreed to organise a Meetup in Swansea and another who had travelled all the way from Glastonbury agreed to set up a Meetup in his locality, probably in Taunton.
The coordinator said that although he had organised this first Cardiff Meetup it would be desirable if younger people took the local campaign forward since they would relate to a wider age range and be familiar with the latest IT technologies, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc.. It was encouraging that two young enthusiastic supporters volunteered to fill this role and the original coordinator agreed to assist whenever required.
All in all the Meetup could be described as a success.