Hi all, welcome to September's update. 👋

September ramps up quickly from the exodus that is August, and today is in the middle of La Mercè, which is one of Barcelona’s biggest festivals. The city is buzzing with lots going on, and if you want to find out more about some of the activities and events you can read the guide we created here.

Tonight is the return of our monthly meet-up and as I write this we have over 270 people registered. This usually means we will get about 50% as there is no jeopardy for people that sign up and do not attend (which is a little frustrating), but if you do want to come along you can sign up here on Luma or here on Meetup. There is a free shot before 8:30 for those that might be interested. 🍻

A quick note on the events: the reason we do them is so that people can meet new friends and contacts. The unwritten rule is that if you attend, you should be open to talking to people, and if you see someone at a loose end, go and say “hi”, you might find a new friend or make someone's day. We put on events purely for this reason, and as an opportunity to catch up with old friends who have been part of this community for the last (almost) 6 years. A number of these make the community what it is today.

We will close off reservations at 7pm, so if your name is not down, you can’t come in as we will have security at the door (it is a private club). 🔒

For the first time, some of the more intrepid members will be going to the afterparty, which we will have at La Terrazza. Details of this are in the Barcelona Ravers group, in the BES Social community. If you are interested in joining then you need to post in there. For details on how to join the Ravers group, you can read how here.

I have just posted the October meet-up event on Meetup and Luma. Due to the amount of people that are now registering and size limits for the venue, please sign up ASAP to secure a slot. We encourage fancy dress, and I would imagine the Barcelona Ravers will head out afterwards. We prefer using Luma as it is free, whereas we pay for Meetup. 🎟️

There are now so many communities in Barcelona, and each has its quirks and focus. Ours is pretty much just to help people navigate the city, both socially and bureaucratically. We do not have ambitions to grow much beyond what we have right now, but people come and go so there will always be a churn of members. This is the nature of a city like Barcelona.

As I write this we have 21 spaces left in the main group, and just over 100 spaces in the BES lifestyle community. I know this exactly as I have been building a tool to help us better manage the communities and deal with inactive members.

What is an inactive member? There are different levels:

  • Truly inactive: People who do not even get the messages delivered to them (for 28+ days).
  • Dormant: People who have the groups on mute and never read posts.
  • Passive: People who read most of the posts, but never actually post or react.
  • Active: People who read, react, and post.

Due to space constraints, we are going to start having a bit of a tidy-up in the groups to free up slots for people that want to join. We will be starting with the people who don’t even get messages delivered and work our way up the list from there. We really do not like to do this, as everyone is welcome, but Meta places constraints on community sizes so it is what it is.

We also adjusted the rules slightly to make things consistent. The most notable change is specifically mentioning trolling. There are certain people that get a kick from this, and if it is in good nature, that's fine, but too often people use it to bully and that is not acceptable.

  • All discussions in English.
  • No sharing of other groups.
  • No messaging people you do not know without permission (please report this to admins as we take this very seriously).
  • No self-promotion or commercial advertising.
  • Don't be a dick; abuse and trolling will not be tolerated.
  • All selling of products (including rentals, etc.) must go in Buy, Sell and Trade with a price listed.

That's about it, apart from mentioning the football community. You can find out about matches in the Barcelona Play Sports group (check how to join here) and join the Spond group here to be the first to know about matches. ⚽

The book club’s next book is Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, and they will be meeting on the 10th of October at 17:00. Details about this are in the Book Club group.

Volleyball is also being run most weekends now, and you can find details of that in the Meet-up group. Thanks to all that take the time to schedule events.

Lots more to update you on, but that can wait until next month.

Happy Friday!
Owen