Here are some tips for being the emcee/host at meetups:
- Be empathetic to those who are there for the first time
- introduce yourself: not everyone knows who you are
- explicitly ask if anyone is new to the group
- if there are newbies, introduce the group: visit the website, explain our Slack, etc
- e.g. some university students may not be familiar with Slack (!)
- Time Management
- remove the burden of time management from the speaker
- give them a 5-minute warning so they can wrap-up coherently
- enforce time boundaries so people can ask questions and things stay on track
- sometimes a speaker will fixate on hammering through their precious slides, but it is better to have Q&A than "make it to the end". If the speaker blew the time constraint, that's their problem.