The other thing which really worked for us: We were getting fed up trying to badger people to help give talks etc (or just doing it ourselves). Completely exhausting. Ended up saying to the community: "this is your meetup, we just help run it. If we don't get 11 speakers for the year we're going to shut it down". We asked in January, got 11 speakers for the year (Dec is social), and we've been doing it like that ever since. Works an absolute treat. You do need to be prepared for no one to step up, in which case, it's sad, but, shut it down. You're not the community, the community is the community!

for it to find it's footing again and grow.

wonderful language, wonderful ecosystem - but the Rails albatross - will be the death of ruby.

It's a Kickstarter for groups that want to feel like they are a club. This helps with the chicken and egg problem.

UK only at the moment but that's easily changed if anyone asked interest elsewhere.