OK, the Austin Scandinavian Languages Meetup Group has been kept going by the San Antonio Contra Dancers.

This does not have to be a permanent situation--ideally I am just buying the ASL group a little more time for someone who actually lives in Austin to step forward.

Even before that, we need some assistant organizers that live in Austin who can arrange meet-ups. From looking at the previous meetups, most of them were at restaurants. It's nice to have food available, but a restaurant doesn't seem ideal for speaking languages in which many of us are not fluent.

When I was in high school (yes, it was eons ago) Gethsemane Lutheran Church offered Swedish classes in their fellowship hall. Maybe they would offer a place for us to have a pot luck or Brown Bag meet-up. Is the SVEA lodge still around? I see the American Scandinavian Foundation mentioned a lot--do they have an office in Austin? Are any of you part of the Germanic Languages Department at U.T.? Anyone familiar with Parks and Recreation?

See, I don't know my way around Austin any more, so I'm not the one to schedule meet-ups.

Please let me know your ideas. It seemed a shame to let this Meetup die with so many members and a fairly long history. (You can show your appreciation by attending the next Austin or San Antonio contra dance! see www.austincontradance.org or www.sacontradancers.org )

Lissa Bengtson
210-867-0692

Tack, Lissa! I have a friend that works for the Parks Department. I'll ask her if there is space we could use for free. I attended a few dinner events last year but haven't been in a while. Looking forward to meeting you all!

Jeremy Dolby

Thank you so much for the sponsorship Lissa! I really appreciate that.

I've been really busy this past week but my schedule is a lot more open now and I'd love to get some meetups happening. If anyone has ideas feel free to post them and hopefully we can work out a time and place which works for a good number of us.

Can't wait to meet everyone!

Sierra

Hi all,

I've been running the Russian meetup for the past year. We have weekly meetings at Central Market at 38th and Lamar (on the second floor of the cafe there). We've never had any problems using the cafe, and there's food/beer/coffee available for whoever wants it.

So, that's one place you can meet. Also, the membership dues work out to $12/month, which isn't that much. If 12 people come to the meeting each month, each person need only pay $1.

I get the impression that the Scandinavian language meetup is a bit more social, since you've got lots of people speaking different languages.

How many people come to the meetings (on average)?

Marc