Canadian Sovereignty Meetup

Wow! That's great. It will be nice to see what the "word of mouth" of these 10 people will do. Maybe double that amount by next month.

Kevin

I would everyone will do as I am - drag friends and family - treat to a beer and the truth - they will thank you for it! On the surface - 54 or so people signed up, it doesnt sound very good, but for anyone who has taken marketing would know that those are the early innovators - the rest will come in due time. I am sure Vive can attest to this as well - we at the CDM have been getting emails from people asking for more information or they are hesitant to sign up because they don't know who 'meetup' is and what they will do with their email address. The hardest part of any journey is the first steps.

I will be at the Edmonton meeting. "A journey of a thousand kilometers begins with one small step." - Mao TseTung

as will I. I hope to see more vive readers sign up for their local meetups!

This is incredible, meet ups are scheduled even in the U.S., and the worst part is that Calgary won't be having one this month because of not enough participation! I just heard the date and it's already cancelled. But that doesn't irritate me as much as knowing that many in Calgary probably don't have a clue what is going on...way too much crap media and not enough truth!

To those in Vancouver: Sorry I won't be making it to the meetup. I'm leaving town this friday to work for "the man" for the summer.

I think the Edmonton one went well! 6 people showed up, along with a couple confused people from the Elvis meetup

. It was really good to put some faces to some people with whom I've been conversing for so long. I'll post pics later - forgot the cable that lets me download off the camera

. How did every one elses go?

[QUOTE BY= Dr Caleb] I think the Edmonton one went well! 6 people showed up, along with a couple confused people from the Elvis meetup

. It was really good to put some faces to some people with whom I've been conversing for so long. I'll post pics later - forgot the cable that lets me download off the camera

. How did every one elses go? [/QUOTE] Thats good to hear! I would love to see the pics - as I am sure everyone else would. The Vancouver event was only taken in by a few people, but the location was very bad. Parking must be a consideration, as I am sure a few people gave up after a couple dozen circles of the block. Vancouver frowns on cars in the city - hence no parking in the downtown core. As this was the first go around we were expecting a low turnout, but that will not keep us from pressing on. Toronto it seems had many people confirmed (well so did Vancouver) so I hope that meeting went well. How did the meetings go in terms of discussion and bridge building? Our discussion was topic specific and a segment was spent talking on how people heard of the meetup and how to get more attention and people out to next months. I would love to hear peoples experiences and suggestions on how to improve the Sovereignty meetup. Take care, Roy

Well, with 6 of us, there were from 1 to 3 different conversations going on at a time. I think the theme the whole time was 'how to make Canada better'. I don't think there was any definite answer to that, but this was just our first get together, more getting to know each other and finding a common ground than trying to solve all of Canada's problems over a pint. There were many topics discussed, from Mordecai Richler (sp?) to Sir Wilfred Laurier and how he 'privatized' CN rail, to how we (Albertans) are getting the shaft when it comes to our natural resources (I found it interesting that once oil/gas goes into the main US pipeline that canada is not allowed to inventory it - we just have to take the oil companies word for it that they ship so many barrels or gigajoules south!). One of the group is even running for the PC party in Anne McLelland's riding (Edmonton Centre). A member who drove all the way from Athabasca (Hey, do you know the Frey's just east of Collinton? Soy farmers? Small world!), facinated me with his tales of culture in Indonesia, and how we don't really have such a thing in Canada which led to the question 'Is there really any "Distinct Society" in Canada? ' If the US is a 'melting pot', and Canada is a 'Mosaic', isn't French Canada, Acadia, Newfs, Mowhawks, Ukranians, Germans, Innu cultures all distinct? Why try to stuff any of them into a mould? Jesse and I introduced one member to the intracacies of Intellectual Property, Copyright and just how much freedom in both has been lost by the DMCA and PATRIOT act, especially to us geeks. A little primer on the difference between CSIS and the CIA also made it's way into the conversation. Naturally the implications of Maher Arar were discussed. We didn't use our screen names, except for Milton who's name is his screen name

. Meatspace is different than Cyberspace, I don't use my real name here, why use 'Dr Caleb' there? One member did not wish to be photographed, so that's cool. IIRC our member from Atha-B was still there, so we got a shot of 5 of us. Perhaps for the next meet it will be easier to develop an agenda. But I think all had a good first meet.

The Winnipeg one was cancelled because we only had 3 people sign up.

[QUOTE BY= Reverend Blair] The Winnipeg one was cancelled because we only had 3 people sign up.

[/QUOTE] Maybe we can get some posters up around the cities before next month's meetup? It should encourage random people to show up if nothing else. We definitely need to encourage even more attendace. (speaking of which, what did the vancouver group come up with on that front?)

Photo should be online anytime! <a href='http://canadiansov.meetup.com/photos/'>Linky!</a> Check under the Edmonton Meetup for photos!