New Year, New OWC
Happy 2021, OWCers!
With the new year comes some big changes. Some of you may have heard some buzzing about this for a while, but we're finally taking the plunge. The Ottawa Writer's Circle is officially moving off the Meetup.com platform and permanently and solely onto our website, as of January 20, 2021. Any events between now and then will be cross-posted, but all RSVPs will be handled on the OWC Website. We've got a bunch of events already scheduled over there if you want to check it out.
So why are we doing this? Well, while Meetup has been instrumental in growing this group into what it has become, the Ottawa Writer's Circle has outgrown the platform. Meetup isn't very flexible for the amount of money we pay for it. It is also a U.S.-based website that doesn't have great international support or features. The final nail in the coffin, so to speak, was Meetup's focus on becoming a networking platform and its focus on membership numbers overtop of engagement. It's also on the brink of changing its fee structure, and we're not going to wait around for that to happen (again).
The OWC Website gives us a lot more flexibility to make this group into what we want it to be. We've had a blog and forums here for a while, but now we have a chance to make those a lot more active and integral to our community, especially in pandemic times. We've also got our Discord, which is brand new. We're really excited about these new opportunities for the OWC, and we hope you'll be on board!
So what does this mean for you? The Meetup group will be deleted completely on January 20th, 2021. If you'd like to stay a member of the OWC, you'll have to become a member of the OWC Website (www.ottawawriterscircle.com) where you'll have access to the forum, the blog, the events page, and the critique partners database right away. If you want to make sure you don't miss any news or events, join our new mailing list so you'll get a monthly digest of upcoming events and the latest OWC news. (If you joined our old mailing list, you'll have to sign up again. We want to make sure we're getting all the right people!)
Otherwise? We expect it'll be mostly the same, we'll just be on a different website. Wix, the host of our website, even has an app! Of course, there will be growing pains, and we'll grow through those together, just like we did at the beginning of the pandemic. However, we feel good (and excited!) about this move.
Feel free to leave any questions, concerns, or excitements you may have down in the comments below. We'll do our best to make this move as smooth as possible!
P.S. Did you join our new mailing list? No? Maybe you want to join our new mailing list!