I'd like that. But I'd like to suggest a bi-coastal national meetup first.

It would be great to meet some like minded people from my community to share ideas for personal preparation.

I am hoping that someone recommends a web service that would make it easy for us to form groups by very small geographic regions.

In the spirit of fossil fuel reduction, I am not interested in geographic areas larger than a few miles in radius.

If people could find out what TOD users were local to them, they could make contact. But there are privacy issues.

I am aware of at least two energy posters who live in my area. They are probably unaware of my location. One seems to have views that suggest we might prefer not to meet. l have enjoyed personal associations with members of Zero Population Growth and Planned Parenthood in the past. I have also encountered internet friends in New York City, Seattle, Hawaii,Oregon and at two ASPO meetings. I particularly enjoyed meeting Walter Youngquist among many other ASPO attendees. At the moment I have no particular interest in a local or regional group but would probably show up if one were held.
--The Pickens Plan people have attempted to encourage local groups. I doubt that they have encountered much success, save perhaps for the large town hall meetings.
------------------------------------------------
(I hope that the political scientist Michael C. Lynch doesn't discover this typo!. "TheOilDum.com has had 45 million page views"

Hello Nate,

I suspect my Asphaltistan would have a very small group:

http://sustainability.asu.edu/
--------------------------------
Ariz. State University: Global Institute of Sustainability [GIOS]
--------------------------------
When I individually type TheOilDrum.com, EnergyBulletin.net, LifeaftertheoilCrash.net into their search engine feature = ZERO

Overshoot, Jay Hanson, Olduvai Gorge, Garrett Hardin, Albert Bartlett, Catton, ASPO = 0

Kunstler = 1 hit

Peak Oil = 2 hits

I got too depressed after that to continue. You would think GIOS would have 1,000 of hits on the above. They have never responded to my emails either.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

There are lots of fancy software tools to help folks meet regularly. But those of us that are only occasional readers/posters don't need another web site to keep track of. Instead, I would recommend the following:

Post a Meetup thread just like this one about once a month.

Folks in individual locations can then create subthreads to hammer out the logistics.

I'll start one for Seattle

Anyone want to get together for lunch in Seattle on Monday, September 28? I recommend getting together at Hales's Ales in Fremont -- "Think Globally, Drink Locally."

-- Jon

Nate- I assume you would host the Vermont meeting at your house. In which case I would be happy to attend.

What if we all posted our individual geographic locations In my case I'm in Hollywood Florida
I'll add an email address to my profile if anyone would like to contact me personally.

I see NOliver had the same idea.

What if we all add our geographic locations to our profiles, could someone at TOD create a database that we could all reference to see who is in our general area?

I'm a newcomer to the site. I'd just like to know how to ask a question and have your subscribers comment on it.

jim

Say, nice idea for a campfire.

TOD is an interesting place. I came for the information and stayed for the sanity. I'll check back occasionally even when I stop being a "regular" here, I'm sure, if circumstances allow.

I'm not a networker; if there's an opposite, that's what I probably am these days. Networking is what I have an italian wife for. Yet I've occasionally thought I'd like it if all TOD participants could all just pull up stakes and take over a country somewhere, and then arrange transport like the elves leaving middle earth.

I'll work on it, but in the meanwhile, I'd like to encourage folks to please add email contact information to their member profiles. It's easy enough to get a fairly-anonymous email address these days, and it could facilitate just the sort of meetups this keypost discusses. Or to enable you to receive a low-profile memo on just which country we're taking over.

I have no need to meet local folks - while "international" remains possible I'll stick with that - but I'm also not opposed to it, as long as I'm in reasonable control of the flow. Sane and well-motivated folks are good to know wherever they pop up.

I hope TOD remains what it is, but would love to see ways in which personal contacts could be made more easily. Anonymity has its place and is underrated, but some contacts are worth making. I suppose it remains to be seen whether TOD can work that way... but it's probably worth a try.

I"d also be interested in a meet 'n greet. IMO, a traditional conference would probably be best for the first meet. Roundtables could be extremely productive. After that we could do regional meetings that are networked together in real time.

It's an interesting thing to think about. Of course, the entire strength of a forum like TOD is not having to be limited to local interactions.

Moreover, those of us who others take to be "natural leaders" (which is to say, competent) have a tendency to be elected to be in charge of anything which springs up locally if we participate at all.

There's also a seeming diversity among TOD readers in why they visit; some (most?) are looking for investment tips, others want to relocalize, still others may be radical enviros, or social idealists hoping for a golden age of egalitarianism springing from the aftermath of overshoot. This diversity is one of the site's biggest strengths. It'll be interesting to see what sort of meetups might come of it.

Here is a link to a carpooling site. It uses location to suggest possible fellow carpoolers while maintaining privacy until you set up a face to face meeting . Something similar should work for meeting local fellow TOD readers.
http://www.tampabayrideshare.org/

"How could this be accomplished? Can TOD, without expending too many resources, act as a clearinghouse of sorts to assist this effort?"
Given that the TOD community is internet based, would running an IRC server, or having an official channel on efnet be a good way to have random discussions with like minded people?
(i'll hang out in #oildrum on efnet just to see what happens)
Links :
irc://irc.efnet.org http://www.efnet.org

edit: was previously pointing to freenode, but that server tends to be software development orientated)
http://freenode.net/index.shtml

This post feels serendipitous to me as I was meaning to email a moderator pleading my own frustrations at not being able to find and collaborate with the like-minded.

I think it is more likely that certain individuals on this site have specific motivations for wanting to meet up. We can all commiserate about PO, financial collapse, etc. digitally. But the younger cohort (myself included) are hamstrung by financial limitations in making our physical preparations.

The wise (and lucky) might already have land, machinery, hand tools, skills, knowledge, experience. The under-30 crowd, generally, do not. Yet, many of us are enlightened to what is coming, and getting desperate to find somehow, someway to prepare ourselves. Pooling resources seems necessary at this point.

There is value in arranging a meet-up, but it ought to have a stated purpose instead of getting together face to face for some beers. I'm drinking a beer right now, still anguished over how I am going to get myself *security*.

Best,
Ross

Anywhere in New Mexico or Texas would work for me- I'm sure we're pretty scarce around here except perhaps for Austin.

What to talk about? I would emphasize population. Someone else might emphasize conservation suggesting that at the next meeting we avoid traveling across town on any vehicles other than bicycles or light rail. Eventually I would get bored and attempt to shift the conversation to issues like those more often discussed at The Automatic Earth or to items such as the comments on Jonah Lehrer's blog about computational efficiency - Kasporov vs. Deep Blue.
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/09/efficiency.php

Hello - As a new Vermonter who formerly attended a terrific peak oil group in Atlanta, I'd be very interested. Except, being Chittenden County, does that still count as Vermont at TOD? ;-)

A meet-up could be done around a lecture or movie or just pizza and beer. The important thing is to select a day that everyone meets. I'll volunteer Nate to do a presentation and we all hook in via the internet.

I'll be at the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) eastern section meeting in Evansville IN from this Saturday through next Tuesday morning. If any TODers are going to be there as well, we ought to be able to find a time to get together for a chat over a drink or two at the Sunday evening icebreaker, or on one of the field trips being run on Saturday and Sunday (I'll be on both of them), or perhaps after the talks on Monday night.

I realize that the subset of TODers who might be at a petroleum geology conference is probably small, but hey, I'll be there, not just going on the field trips, but giving a talk (poster, actually) on Monday as well, on some structural aspects of a couple outcrops of the Marcellus Shale in western Virginia.

I suppose one could use something like http://www.frappr.com/ - it is essentially a sort of social networking mapper. Apparently google maps is underneath it all.

I used it some years ago - took me a while to remember what the site actually was.

If people choose to, they can put their email address and location (e.g. city or region) in their profile. I've had a few people contact me that way over the years. There have been very few assassination attempts. :)

This is an excellent idea. If I recall correctly, either the Post Carbon Institute or lifeaftertheoilcrash had some sort of google type map set-up to enable folks to contact their neighbours (or maybe I'm thinking of the motorcycle forum I belong to (?)).

BTW, here in Red Deer, Alberta, we're screening the documentary "What a Way to Go: Life at the end of Empire" at the Snell Auditorium on September 29 at 5:45 pm.

I would go on a backpacking trip. Anybody want to join that?

HAPPY OLD GUY DOOMER WARNING!

I changed my profile to include location and e-mail address if anyone in the Reno area wants to get together for a little gab fest.

I really don't think that much can be done at the local level to slow down the tsunami headed our way but sharing ideas eyeball to eyeball has to be a good thing.

Letting local TOD readers get together for a beer is a valid function - I'm sure many of us come here for the relatively lower level of delusionality than in those people we usually interact with.

But there may be another interesting angle to think of: the creation of superorganisms.

Now I'm sure I'm using the term wrong - such a cool term must have an agreed-upon definition but I'll resist the temptation to google it.

What I mean is that many of the future scenarios often discussed here, as well as problems to be solved for the world, are ill-suited to the efforts of single isolated individuals. Some of these situation could be dealt with better via artificial extended families or similar arrangements.

For instance, a person who is land-rich but has no money might do well to ally with an old city person with a couple million bucks, with some people with farming know-how, with a few war veterans, some young folks with that boundless energy, and others with various skills. All of a sudden you might have a very survivable situation for all of them. Yet such a thing wouldn't be likely to hold together unless there was a shared sense of prep for tough times coming up, and the information on TOD could be a nice screening tool.

In a similar way, activists of various stripe might meet here. Sure, there are other sites where activists hang out together, but TOD readers tend to have self-selected for better-than-average correspondence between their mental models and the way the real world works.

So is there a place for a TOD:SuperOrganism section where unlikely alliances might take shape? Where someone with 80 acres and no money can put out a personal ad for a banjo player/blacksmith, a retired hedge fund manager with extra money, a ham radio operator and a half-dozen concubines? I think it'd make entertaining reading even if it didn't accomplish anything.

Just a thought.

I'd definitely be up for some sort of get together - as you can see from my username I made no attempt to hide my general area - somewhere in the lovely rolling mountains of New York.

I attended a screening of the movie "Blind Spot" yesterday and had pretty much my first meet-up with other PO aware people - the attendance was disappointing but probably not unexpected - still I was finally able to meet some other people face to face who don't quite seem to fit in with the rest of the country in its current delusional state. Although the topic doesn't exactly make you the life of the party I have to say that actually getting to talk with others who "get it" provided a rather immediate and substantial psychological boost. For this reason I think some kind of TOD meet up is a great idea.

Catskill

I'd love to meet with people however possible. And easy way to do this is arrange a meeting place and post the time and place on TOD.

I'm in Beaverton Oregon now and a there are a lot of peak oil aware people in the area.

For me at least my own thoughts have moved towards what to do after the peak. This gets personal quickly but a general discussion of post peak living strategies is probably fruitful. Esp if you consider ways that are good regardless of how things turn out. The obvious one of heading for the hills and growing your own food is not all that obvious actually. Given the price of land in many parts of the country and world and issues with actually making money farming going into debt etc etc things get very cloudy very quickly.

These are the sorts of issues that are great for discussing as a group and don't fit well into a web format. Esp as I said you would pretty much have to divulge personal info you don't want to splash across a global website.

So far one of the interesting conclusions I have reached is the need to become self employed it seems regardless of the route you take post peak developing some sort of business that peak oil resilient pops out as the common theme.

But this gets into issues like health care for your family etc etc etc. In a crashed economy having your own business that can bring in money is fantastic however pre-crash your facing very stiff competition and problems simply providing for your family if you strike out on it alone. And of course a business they may well be lucrative post peak may be marginal at best pre-peak.

I could of course go one for ever on the subject but in the end I think that getting like minded people together to bounce around ideas is probably a great thing and it needs to be done. And in many ways this goes back to Westexas's ELP (Economize Localize Produce) concept great in theory but developing it esp if you want to go beyond your own family is difficult. Like minded or not your often talking about partnerships or other business ventures with all the resulting problems.

Lots and lots of stuff to discuss !

I like this idea. I'll bet there are a lot of TOD readers in my area and I'll also bet that a lot of them would also be interested in this concept. A lot of times meeting in person is very different from meeting online.

I don't know quite how to facilitate this online, I know a bit about web sites but am not a guru. It wouldn't seem to be that difficult without expending too many resources. Perhaps find a volunteer to coordinate the TOD effort in this respect and talk to the TOD web gurus to figure out what to do? Have interested persons put their zip code in their user profile, or what? Let us know when you're recruiting such a volunteer and keep us informed.

Keith

Transition towns in the US
Map of hits by location for Transition Towns in the US*
Map of hits by location for transition towns globally
Remember, these maps are dynamic so check back it a week to see if people from this thread looked from your area.

The Oil Drum is a great place to (paraphrasing Nate):
1) Allowed for high level discussions on resource depletion and related issues.
2) Discuss complicated issues and and discover new connections.
3) Form a community of like minded folks.
4) Foster social change and help people get their act together.

To which I would add:
5) Clearing house for information.

In those respects TOD is very much like a virtual university. If you've been here for a year or two then you've earned your degree and it's time to get your hands dirty.

Go out into your community, find some people, and start a transition town or something else, anything. If you can't find anyone in your community who cares about peak oil, climate change, sustainability, mass transit, energy security, local currency, intentional community, etc. then you need to wake them up or that community is going to be in trouble. If you can't wake anyone up then it's in your best interest to move.

We are running out of time. And when the future gets here it would be nice to have something finished, a working model, a plan, something to say other than "I told you so"**

* The Oil Drum can map out the hits by location with Cluster Maps very easily. There are other hit mappers available as well.
** credit for: something to say other than "I told you so" from Debbie Cook, ASPO Houston, TX 2007. She said it much better, but I can't remember the exact quote.

How about all us TOD readers, lurkers, and contributors meet at the ASPO meeting next month? I'll be there. Nate if you are there I'll buy you a beer! I know everyone can't make it of course but this is an example of an existing meeting that can easily facilitate TOD member face to face time.

Another TOD reader gathering that is gathering momentum is the Linked-in TOD Readers Group. Here's a link to it: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=138274&trk=anet_ug_hm If the link doesn't work do a search on "The Oil Drum Readers Group" within Linked-in.

I have found Linked-in to be an interesting networking site in that you get to see what people do during the day or to pay the bills. Their technical background or past experience can lead to some interesting new ideas and connections.
Feel free to link to me if you want, and include in the "invitation to link e-mail" that you are a TOD reader. http://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherahicks

Some people are a bit funny with their contact list on Linked-in and restrict it but I use it for past, present and future business contacts as well as for keeping tabs on other technologies I am following and care about. If you look at my profile there are lots of alternative and renewable energy groups out there that are on the PO aware spectrum. You can connect with other people by joining a "Linked-in group" then if anyone else is in a common group you can invite them to link-in with you. Once you have connected with someone, you can see who THEY are connected to. Drill down through THEIR list and see if there are people that pop up. I've found a lot of PO aware people in my same town this way who I would never met otherwise. It's a bit viral once you grok how it works.

Personally I'm trying to get a job in the renewable energy field so I can apply my talent and passion toward something I care about deeply. This is also a great place for retirees to share their contacts, knowledge, and experience if they are so inclined. So it is not just for the currently employed or for job seekers.

Since TOD readers are all across the USA and even worldwide, we probably walk or drive past someone who is also a TOD'er. ,what about a beltbuckle, Tee-shirt or bumpersticker? something that expresses you are a regestired TOD'er? I am thinking of someway to convey to the world you are a TOD'er where ever you may be. Like in the way a university student would display their allegience to a certain school. Like a sportsfan might wear a jersey.

maybe just a bumper sticker saying: "registered TOD'er". since the car or truck gives more visibility when on the road, as opposed to a Tee-shirt which is not always worn everyday, but a belt buckle or bumpersticker could certainly be. or for those facebook fans, put a link of TOD on your facebook page. Or what about a TOD symbol? something that TOD'ers could put on a car/truck/facebook page/lapel pin.

Or what about the TOD including the city and state next to your TOD name?
example: Geewiz/Houston, Texas.

This may require a re-registration to include such information, but it's just an idea. but it's a start.

getting to meet other TOD'ers would be a good thing. even having chapters in the cities with the biggest concentration of registered TOD'ers.

It's all about visibility, hope my ideas help.

I'd like to get together with everyone from Darwin Australia but I don't think there is a venue in the city large enough...

Still trying to figure out how to get to Denver/ASPO next month.

Meetups are fine ... let's not waste time. Let's see if we can figure out how to set up an alternative economics forum. The precious economy matters ... peak oil ... a theory! Nobody in the 'outside' gives a fuck about peak oil.

Foolish people ...

TOD won't amount to a hill of shit until there is some interface with policy makers. If idiots like Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh can peddle vomit and influence policy, it behooves TOD to make the step to the next level.

The idea is to get Chu, Jeff Bingamen, Lisa Murkowski, Dodd, Nassim Taleb, Ilargi, (('d say Mish but he's an idiot), Kunstler ... Hyman Minsky but he's dead ... I'll come up with a list.

I'll do do my part! I'll straighten these idiots, the whole mess out. If I have to beat my shoe on the desk, I'll do it. No bullshit. Nothing but reality; I deal with reality every day, I have to hold it in my hands and do a proper job about it or I don't get paid.

Social is fine, but unless something important is accomplished, this is the swan song of Oil Drum and I mean it.

Kindof a 'Rome fiddles while Nero burns' kind of thing ... You know what I mean?

Google maps is a fairly low-tech way to see where people live. And there are a couple of ways to use it as well.

The easiest way, for the user, is to add a location field in TOD account, and let people enter their latitude and longitude. It wouldn't be too hard to occasionally create a Google map showing the clustering.

The zero-work method is to create a empty google map and let people put a pin near their own location. However people would need to learn how to edit a Google map. Not hard, but at the same time too hard.

I am not in general interested in meeting - people. eek. :-)

I would like to find some way to meet up with other TOD types in my area, but am extremely reluctant to broadcast my contact details.

My past experience as an atheist Homeschooler parent has taught me the value of anonymity. Here in New Zealand the majority of homeschoolers are rabid christian fundamentalists of one flavour or another who, on learning that you are not one of their weird mob, react in one of two ways, namely: they latch onto you with evangelical fervour in an attempt to persuade you to "see the light", or they treat you as the Devil Incarnate and drag their kids kicking and screaming to some safe haven.

There is a local Transition Town group, but sadly they are also a christian fundamentalist group. I have for many years been a member of the NZ Soil and Health Association, the oldest Organic Food organisation in the (English speaking) world, but they tend to be focused on the food producing aspects only.

To be effective and enticing, I think it would need a group of dedicated TOD volunteers who could scrutinize the submitted "contact profiles" of members, and initially pass on only the profile details. Once acceptance from BOTH parties had been received, contact details could be communicated. This might sound somewhat paranoid, but I value my privacy and have been persecuted far too often by persons with their own agenda.

I would be prepared to act as a New Zealand "co-ordinator" in the following way:
1: I would not be given name/address details of the parties involved
2: I would not have the final say on giving out details, merely assessing and linking possibly compatible members.
3. my task would be to compare the submitted profiles for apparent compatibilities.
4. A senior TOD member would decide whether of not to link the members whom I considered to be compatible.

It may be that the initial screening could be automated by keywords. In my case these could be: male, separated, parent, aged, grumpy, atheist, doomer, organic gardener, engineer/scientist/manufacturer, square dancer, misanthrope, heterosexual, mildly racist, mildly sexist, impoverished, etc.

It may be a whole different ballgame from the basic TOD system, but it might also be a way of progressing what I think is our main aim, namely: how to ensure that an adequate supply of compos mentis homo sapiens pass through the approaching bottleneck to ensure a future for mankind.

Good idea. I'm southeast of the twin cities; Red Wing, MN, Ellsworth, WI, River Falls, WI. I'm terrible at organizing though so if someone wants to plan a hook up, I could try to be there.

I definitely would be up for it - I'd imagine, if it was even slightly organized, this group would be able to get some fantastic speakers and presentations. As well as the social benefits of the meet-up.

Where?

Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

3rd best place in the world for solar. Great geothermal. Underground aquifers.

Sunny with great beaches. Easy to get to from the Bay or anywhere else. Nice hotels, for all budgets.

I wonder how many people from Europe are reading this site...
(I'm from Belgium)

East-central Alabama, USA. Rural acreage, will share. vineyfig [at] knology [dot] com. "Jim Kunstler, come on down!"

The name says it all. I'm in a rather sparsely populated area 50 miles south of Pittsburgh; probably out of range of other TOD'ers.

I live in Portland OR. Would love to have a meet up here. There are lots of "us" here.

It would be great to meet some of the TODers in my area. However, instead of just having a social get together, I would suggest a presentation with following discussion to make it productive, focused and social obligation-free. Let’s say, someone would post a meeting agenda on TOD and offer a short presentation/lecture/latest article/whatever on a subject of interest in a chosen location. It doesn’t have to be professional (that’s the beauty of this!). I know that I would prefer this format due to lack of free time and my very private nature. Who knows maybe some strong social bonds will emerge from such gatherings. Than it’ll be a bonus!

Virtualtourist.com has excellent meet-up function.

Anyone is up to the challenge in Simcoe County, Ontario?

I am quite open to meeting anyone coming to New Orleans, or living in the area. I am not so keen on traveling to a meeting. I am content to live within a 3 mile radius of my home (except during JazzFest, 6 miles away by streetcar).

All assassination attempts, to date, have failed. Either distracted by the temptations of New Orleans or confused by our street layout >;-)

Alan

I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk of the two most obvious means here: Facebook and Meetup. I use both of these websites frequently, and think that they could be a great resource.

I think Meetup.com would be the perfect avenue for this type of thing. I use meetup to find backpacking and other groups, and have gone on trips etc. with people from meetup. You can schedule regular meets with your group, and it keeps everyone informed.

The nice thing is that you can do different things each time, and people can attend just the ones they want. You could have lectures/films or just meet for drinks or food.

Facebook also seems like a good tool for those who want to be known in real life. I am a member of the oil drum group on Facebook, but it seems to be mostly Italians, and I'm in Minnesota.

I'm in Northeast Kansas/Kansas City area. The weekend after this I will be at the Prairie Festival at the Land Institute in Salina. That is where I first heard Kunstler which led me to TOD. Any other TOD'ers going can contact me at the email address in my profile.

Stephanie

I've toyed with the idea of using Meetup.com to set up a post-carbon type group here in Tallahassee (Florida), but thus far I've held back. I've been in other kinds of interest groups, like a philosophy discussion group when I was living in Atlanta, and while it was very rewarding, you have to screen out the kooks. For example, my last invite on Meetup.com was to the John Birch Society, which apparently is trying to start a local presence. Apparently the NWO is up to it's old tricks again :^) .

One good result of my readings on TOD is that I've started volunteering with a local community garden, as a way to assist and encourage one kind of local mitigation strategy. I explained my reasons for doing so to some of the organizers and they totally got it - not sure if they agree with me, but they understood my reasoning. I'm hoping through methods like these I could find enough like-minded people to get something going.

I was thinking about setting up a website for people to get in touch, as getting a nice place in the country is a lot of work just for one person.
My locations are St. Petersburg (Russia), Lviv (Ukraine) and Oxford (UK). Not many Oil Drum readers in St. Petersburg I suspect.

For northern California TODers...

This isn't exactly a "meet-up" but I'm always glad to have visitors to our place in the boondocks. To see if this would be of interest to you, see my Campfire essay, A Trip to Todd's.

I'm about 3 1/2 hours north of the GG Bridge at legal driving speeds. There's a cheap motel in town or you'd be welcome to camp (tent or camper) at our place. If you are interested, email me at detzel at mcn dotorg. Include your real name, your phone number (I'm not into email correspondence) and the best time to call you.

I'm putting the garden to bed right now so there wouldn't be much to see but everything else is here.

Todd

I'm in UK Midlands based in Birmingham though not envisaging staying here for the foreseeable future. There appears to be a total lack of well-clued people anywhere around here. I haven't yet had time/energy for much effort to recruit others locally.

In the future there will be no substitute for having a group of people right there within sight and sound. And there will be no substitute for having people with the talents, skills, knowledge that are found here. So this seems a most important concept.
www.energyark.blogspot.com

I'd like to see Pitt the Elder, oldfarmermac, and Neil1947 all together in a room, though not too small a room..

Hi Nate, Hello Everybody,

I was at the TOD Europe-ASPO meeting at Alcatraz. It was like a freeform seminar conducted by people that were ego free. Remarkable.
Next best thing - I vote for backpacking in the Porcupine Mountains.

I'm in NYC - is there anyone else here??
WeekendPeak

So, is anything happening in Denver around the conference?

Wonderful idea. I'd definitely love to meet like-minded folks from Bangalore area (India).

Nate, of those millions, how many just looked at a few pages then decided it wasn't their scene and never returned? I guess there would be ways of inferring that from the proportion of ip addresses only ever accessing on one day.

Anybody in Central Eastern North Carolina? (New Bern, NC)

themouse

Anyone else in the so-called "Energy Capital of the World": Houston, Texas??

-Suess

Physical meetings would be great for those with academic points to discuss or those who simply like a social get-together with like minded souls.

However for those who are making active preparations, surely face-to-face meetings could simply provide unprepared people with an address of a place to run to?

Better to be cynical and safe I would say.

One of the reasons I have not been commenting on TOD as much recently is that I have made a concious deciosn to spend more time in my local community spreading awareness and launching a Transition Towns initiative. I though about how it would be good to meet up with some fellow TOD memebers but I really don't think it would be that much fun. We'd all agree pretty much that Peak Oil is going to happen and that when it does things are going to change. Well duhh! I'm far more interested now in making local preparations and building more resilience back into the community and I think you can do that wherever you live. Meeting up with other TODers would only be useful to me if if we are travelling on a path to doing something about preparing for the inevitable. I think I've had enough of debating the minutiae of what might or might not happen. Transition Towns seems to me to be the best model to get relocalisation started and I have found that talking to people about peak oil in the context of building a better community is so much easier than screaming "were all doomed".

Nate if you feel the need to meet real live folks, you need to take a really good look at what is already happening in your local area with sustainability groups and plug into that network. I think you will find the experience is very fulfilling, but it is also a little scary as you are moving from a pixelated voice on a blog, to taking real respnsibilities for real peoples lives. It is daunting but also humbling when they ask you to lead them.

Modest proposal: The TOD should have a web page that lists future meeting dates and places for ASPO and similar organizations. Piggyback on existing gatherings to have some TOD readers meet each other.