Does anybody have any ideas on how to make bcrossing meetings more lively and well attended? I am curious if you all have any ideas.

Hold them during happy hour at a bar? Invite more BookObsessors? Hold a live swap?

We did a white elephant swap, we had a few more people show up, but honestly, it's usually us same 2-3 people. I'm actually not going any more and just sticking with my book club right now.

A few years back Lauren went throught the BC list and invited everybody and we got some very nice :luv: people whom we also introduced to BO. And also some of the people here travel miles to come to our Meet-Ups which is fantastic. All you really need are a few lively people, the discussions and laughter seem to follow

thanks for all of your advice

We had a wild! release event at the Akron library that was pretty well attended and we're fixtures at the reading festival--we've even got people to join and become attendees through this venue. Of course, we have a strong core group of members (which fluctuates between 3-6 members), but we try to think of activities to excite local members.

hold a live swap? would we hide the books, reveal them, and then steal them from each other? I'm not sure how this works :duh:

Exactly! Well, in the past we've wrapped the books in paper and unwrapped them as they are revealed. Then you could steal them from each other in person! Otherwise, it works just like swaps online. They are incredibly fun in real life and can get pretty wild!! :lol:

A live swap!! Where?? I can come :lol:

We have live swaps at our meets and it certainly adds to the fun. We also had several at the Uncon and introduced Scott to the idea.
The stealing gets quite lively and I must say that the prettily wrapped books get revealed first.

Wow!!! That is a cool idea!

Here we try a new place each month so people can also see a little bit more of Vienna :wink: and the organiser always pm's reminders/invites to regulars and any people who have caught any English books in Vienna.