how to improve turnout at Aspie group

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I was wondering if I could get any good opinions, suggestions, or insite in regards to to an Aspie group I'm involved in and how I could help bring more members in and keep existing members interested. I recently got involved in a Asperger's group. I mainly joined because I want to meet more like minded people. In addition, I want to help anyone struggleing with particular issues that I've struggled in the past and learned how to cope which would make me feel good. I been involved in a this Aspie group the meets up once every for about two years but unfortunately many of the members seem to not show much on term interest in the group. Many regular members do not show up regularly and many new members do not come back. We often have a low turn out and many weekly meetings get cancelled because no one shows up. I get very disappointed. I want to meet more Aspies but the fact that the meeting gets low at tendence hasn't helped me and it hasn't helped. I'm starting to wonder if it's what we do in the group that has made people not interested on comming back. If that's the case I want to try to offer suggestions to help make the group different so people are more interested.

In order to do this I had the brilliant idea to post this on WP and explain what we do in this group and see if you think what we do in this group is something you like, dislike, and if there's anything thing we should do differently or do better.

We meet up every Sunday. Each Sunday during the month we do a different thing. The first Sunday we have a game day where we play hoard games, the second sunday we learn to cook a meal, the third sunday we have arts and crafts were we make an art project or build something, the forth sunday we "go out and have fun" meating we go somewhere i.e. bowl, watch a movie, go to a park, ect and the group decides aed on popular vote. then the next sunday it's game day again and the activities for each Sunday of the month repeat again.

I enjoy the meetup and the month cycle of ruitine activities. However I personally think the meetup could be a little better. I think many people probably do t show up because the activities are kind of stale and babyish. Cooking a meal is kind of work and not as fun, doing am arts and craft is ki d of boring, and playing a bord game every first Sunday is kind of fun but also gets bored after a while. I'm thinking maybe this regular monthly ruitune for each meetup is maybe boring and turning off members. I was wondering what do you think? Do you think this is the reason why many members aren't showing up? What go you think we could do to improve the group? If you are involved in an aspie group wanted to get involved in one, what wild you feel would make the group group exciting, inspiring, or beneficial enough to want to attend weekly? Thanks your insite is a huge vale to me and I'll consider your thoughts as possible ideas.

Meet less often
Find out if another day or time is more convenient for people.

my suggestion would be to meet every other Saturday at a central location where people don't have to commute too far. maybe use meetup.com/square pegs as the online meetup point and template. emphasize that it is a mutual support group, and that what is discussed there stays there. also have each member devote 5 minutes off the bat, going around the table, to talk about their high point and their low point of the previous two weeks, with nobody else interrupting them but note-taking allowed. then after that is over, ask each other about the points they made and offer emotional support.

My husband helps run an Autism group.

They use Meet Up to get the word out. The group has also sent flyers to the local schools and churches.

The weekends are the kiss of death. Parents can't come and there are too many other social obligations (school or family related).

The group meets at the public library meeting room. The library is great because it is free and easy to find. It is comfortable.

The group meets once a month right now. There is always a topic to talk about, and the group is a support group. BUT the conversation can always stray if the topic gets talked out.

They also plan movie nights, game night, and picnics during the summer.

Right now, the groups is heavily skewed to 20+ s with no kids. It isn't really a parent group.

I think the big issue is a central, neutral meeting place, and it being on the weekends.

Those are some great ideas! I will keep these in mind. I really appreciate the responce.

Thank you. I really appreciate the responce. Definitely some good points and I never knew weekends are a bad time but I guess it does make sense because people always say that do have last minute plans.

prego that is how my group has run since 2011. luckily it has remained at a manageable size.

I would like to go to an autism group where it's not all round-table/board meeting style discussion....that gets really difficult and un-enjoyable for me at a certain point, even when the topic(s) is(/are) one(s) that I'm interested in. If there was a bit of that sort of discussion, and then just hanging out and/or doing activities (probably activities....I could see undefined hanging around being everyone sitting in silence doing nothing at all) I would much prefer that to just round-table/board meeting style discussion.

I suggest that for the activities in your group, you get group members to make suggestions for what you could all do at the next meeting and then vote on the suggestions afterwards, rather than having a pre-determined activity or type of activity on a rotating schedule.

Informal after meeting dinners were common at the groups I attended.

Wow. Great points stated! I greatly appreciate it!

Share your special interest day...you would have to put a strict time limit so everyone could be involved though or the first person could probably go all night and no one else would get to share. That being said, you could always just ask the members what they want/need out of the group and go from there.

Car clubs have things like member car of the month, or some other light-hearted competition of sorts.

Perhaps you could have a type of show-n-tell for special interests.

Keep collecting continuous feedback about what your members like.
Do some activity that satisfies these likes. For example I love educational documentaries.
I would show up to watch and discuss a particularly interesting documentary.

Figure a way to allow your members to make some valuable intellectual contributions to the community, business or otherwise.