Questions About Improving Our Asian Film Meetup Group

Greetings Everyone,

Sorry I have not been to this site as much as I use to be Work has been keeping me very busy. I hope things will slow down Soon. I am sending out this message because We are growing but the meetups that are posted we don't even have a 3rd of the group attending.

I was Finally able to find a place for the group to meet monthly so we can view each other movies, and I am working on gettting Assistant Organizers to help keep up with some of the Asian films I miss in the theaters.

What I need to know from everyone is:

What improvements or changes do you think should be made that would make this group more exciting and interesting and make it so you be willing to show up for meetings?

You can reply to me personally or rply to the Message Board where a copy of this is posted.

All input is welcome. This Our Group and I wish to make it one of the best.

Take care.

Corey

What improvements or changes do you think should be made that would make this group more exciting and interesting and make it so you be willing to show up for meetings?

Hi, Corey, first let me say, my not showing up is not your or the group's fault. I have been working a lot of Sundays.

However, that said, I do have a suggestion or request that would make it more appealing to me:
Instead of pot luck on the movies at D&B, could you please set an agenda from among offerings or do a poll to choose the ones the most likely attendees would like to see? I'm not a huge fan of action movies. They're okay in measured doses, but I'm more into dramas and comedies. Another alternative would be to set each meeting so that more than one genre and country is represented *OR* to set up explicitly specialized sessions, e.g. all police procedurals or all Korean or something like that.

Just some personal stats: the Asian movies I own are in Japanese for the most part. I have mostly dramas, comedies and anime. I have a lot of Japanese TV shows on video (esp. beta), but a good deal of my video is without English subtitles. What I have on DVD is subtitled, with one exception.

These are my DVD titles:

Great Yokai War (Yokai Dai Senso) PG (best guess)

Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma Monogatari) PG-13 (best guess)

(The Mystery of) Rampo ADULTS ONLY!

Tokyo Drifter (Tokyo Nagaremono) (Reservoir Dogs level of violence)

Equinox Flowers (Higan Bana)

2046 (in Chinese and Japanese) adult sexual situations, not too explicit

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (Yume) (in Japanese, English & French)

The Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka)

Sakura Wars (Sakura Taisen)

Cafe Lumiere (Kohi Jiko)

Ju-On 2

Kadokawa Mystery & Horror Tales Vol. 1 (three shorts 32-40 min, in length)

Tony Takitani

Lakeside Murder Case (in Japanese, no subtitles, nudity)

mimi

I am not sure what we can do to get more members to come to our events. I know by the other MEET UP groups that I belong that they have the same problems of having lots of members but only a few people show up. No matter what the other groups do, it is the same story. I guess that when we do have the monthly get togethers that we choose a theme, maybe 1 time action movies, next comedies, then dramas, horror etc.. On the meetups at the theaters we can include going out to eat after the show. One idea that I like is if to do something different like if there is an Asian theme show, like dancers or musicians, we can do a meetup to check out the show. Again no matter what ideas we come up with it'll be hard to please everyone but I would like to see what the other members have in mind.

Jesus Mora

What improvements or changes do you think should be made that would make this group more exciting and interesting and make it so you be willing to show up for meetings?

Hi, Corey, first let me say, my not showing up is not your or the group's fault. I have been working a lot of Sundays.

However, that said, I do have a suggestion or request that would make it more appealing to me:
Instead of pot luck on the movies at D&B, could you please set an agenda from among offerings or do a poll to choose the ones the most likely attendees would like to see? I'm not a huge fan of action movies. They're okay in measured doses, but I'm more into dramas and comedies. Another alternative would be to set each meeting so that more than one genre and country is represented *OR* to set up explicitly specialized sessions, e.g. all police procedural or all Korean or something like that.

Hi Mimi,

Thanks for your input. Just to let you know I did a Couple of Themed Meetups already we did one for Triads, and we did one for Old School Movies. As for the type of movies, I try to bring a little bit of everything with me and it's usually a pot luck type of event because I want everyone there to have input as to what they feel like watching. Yes we could have a poll to see what people want to view, but you might want to see a drama a week before the event, then when the Meetup happens you might be in the mood for a comedy instead of drama. Another reason for not having a poll is because I'm an assistant organizer for the Chicagoland Movie Meetup group and when Joshua and I took over the group we did polls and people voted but didn't show up. I felt it wasn't fair that they voted for it then didn't bother to show up for the event they voted for.

Now as for collections, I have a very very Large collection of Asian films but it's mostly action, horror, anime, a few dramas, and comedies. because of this the last couple of Meetups I have tried to get members to bring their favorite movies in so that the choices aren't just from what I bring, but again we only had 4 to 5 people show and I had to cancel one. I also try to bring in the latest movies that are out overseas so everyone can see them before they get here 5 to 6 months later under a different movie title.

I plan on doing more Themed events but I'm hoping to get more people to show up so we can have a bigger selection to chose from. That is part of what this group is for people sharing their passion for Asian films.

Thanks for listing what you have, I'm still working on posting a list of movies & Anime I have in the files selection. i hope to have that up in another month or so.

Thanks again for your input and take care.

I am not sure what we can do to get more members to come to our events. I know by the other MEET UP groups that I belong that they have the same problems of having lots of members but only a few people show up. No matter what the other groups do, it is the same story. I guess that when we do have the monthly get together that we choose a theme, maybe 1 time action movies, next comedies, then dramas, horror etc.. On the Meetups at the theaters we can include going out to eat after the show. One idea that I like is if to do something different like if there is an Asian theme show, like dancers or musicians, we can do a Meetup to check out the show. Again no matter what ideas we come up with it'll be hard to please everyone but I would like to see what the other members have in mind.

Jesus Mora

Hi Jesus,

Thanks for the input. The other Movie group I am in it's pretty much the same way we have over 300 people yet we don't get more then 10 to 12 people to show up. There have been a few occasions when I have had 10+ people RSVP yes and then no one shows up. I have thought about doing other Asian Themed shows such as "Cirque Shanghai: GOLD" at Navy Pier. But I need to work on the planing of it, picking the right day and far enough in advance so that people can get tickets, Seeing if we buy in bulk can we get discount tickets and be able to sit together. With the way work is right now I just don't have the time yet to do that sort of thing, hence the reason I will be adding assistant Organizers, so I can have help with the movies and special events that I miss out on because of work. I know we can't please everybody, but I would like to try to please the majority.

Thanks again and Take care