Guidelines for Special Interest Groups

A Special Interest Group can be formed around almost any activity or interest. They can also be formed of persons in specific geographic areas.  So you can have a Lesbian Moms Groups, a Stockton Gay Sailing Club, a Midtown Third Wednesday Dinner Group, or just about any other idea you may have that you think might attract members.

Once you have formed a Special Interest Group, you can invite friends who you think share the same interest to join.  And those people can invite their friends.  If your group has broad appeal, it can expand fairly rapidly. You can then pick members of the group for your friends, exchange private messages with them, start discussions on the groups forum and meet in person for dinner or  special events and activities.  Our Special Interest Groups share a lot in common with MeetUp groups, and have a lot of additional functionality that MeetUp doesn't.  See: www.MeetUp.com  The advantage that we have over MeetUp is that we are LGBT oriented and always gay-friendly and our groups are more fully integrated into the community and can list their events on a master calendar.

How to Set Up a Special Interest Group (SIG)

• Click on Groups in the top menu bar to go to the group page
• Then click on "Create a Group" in the upper right corner.
  
• Fill in the information.  After the name of your group, put the letters "SIG" in uppercase letters.  This will let others know it is a Special Interest Group and not a non-profit organization.  It will also enable users to search on "SIG" to get a list of all Special Interest Groups.
• Select a good picture or logo to identify your group.  You should size and optimize the photo to a format of 183px X 183px.  You can find free online software and instructions for doing this at our page on Optimizing and Resizing Images.
• Fill in the rest of the information, accepting the default "Group Address."
• Then, select the features you want the group to have and select privacy and messaging options.
• Click on "Create Group" and your group will be created.

After creating your group, go to the group page and, in the text box below the logo, describe in more detail what your group does.  You can add other information to this text box and even include photos and widgets.  It is good practice to create an initial discussion in the discussion forum with the title of  "Introductions."  People who join your group can be invited to reply to this discussion by introducing themselves.  It is also good practice for the host of the group to reply to the member's post with a welcome message.