---
title: "Meetup Hosts"
weight: 20
---

Meetup hosts are the lifeblood of Handmade Cities, and we depend on them to grow decentralized offline meetups all over the world. In this guide we discuss their responsibilities before [deciding](/docs/contributing/volunteer) to volunteer.

## Meetup Principles

We require every meetup host to abide by two principles: 

1. You care about software quality
2. Your love for the craft extends *beyond* a paycheck

We don't want our coding meetups to devolve into a generic networking club, padding GitHub stars and sharing resumes. We've met too many people perfectly content with stitching together black boxes or calling magic functions, without an ounce of technical curiosity. **Those programmers don't belong with us.** 

As the host it's your burden to call out uncaring programmers in a civil manner, one-on-one, and if they don't change their ways removing them from the group. In our experience folks will come around or simply leave after talking to them respectfully.

{{< alert context="primary" text="Whoever's in real need of a job can look into our [Job Referral Program](/docs/support/employment)" />}}

## Mentoring Services

Handmade Cities offers free mentoring to all potential hosts. We realize organizing a meetup is a nerve-wracking ordeal and our ultimate goal is getting you comfortable with this. The more social butterflies among us programmers the better!

## Chat Invites

Meetup hosts have the power to invite community members to our [chat server](/docs/chat). Here are the steps:
1. [Download](https://git.handmadecities.com/meetups/meetupinvite2000/releases) the latest **Meetup Invite 2000** from HMC Gitea
2. Make sure `config.toml` lives next to the binary (if you lost this file [notify us](/docs/support/contact) right away)
3. Run `./meetupinvite2000 chat [email]` where `[email]` is the email address of the community member

You'll then be asked the following question by the command-line tool:
- `"Can you vouch for the human identity of [email]?"`

If you answer no the program stops and exits. Otherwise you'll be asked the final question:
- `"Have you met this person in meatspace?"`

If you answer yes, the invite gets generated and the member is granted a **Verified Human** badge. If you answer no, the invite is generated anyway but this new user does NOT receive the **Verified Human** badge. 

[Learn more](/docs/chat/#verified-human-badge) about badges.

## Sponsor-Free Events 

We are 100% indie and [very vocal](https://handmadecities.com/about) about having zero sponsors. If we discover your in-person event is financially backed by some entity, **the ban is immediate** and publicly disclosed to the community.


{{< alert context="danger" text="If you're searching for loopholes (\"a single employee sponsored me, not the company!\") you're doing everything wrong." />}}

Notice we're [not against](/docs/contributing/funding/#why-were-not-a-non-profit) making profits: your meetup group may occasionally promote commercial projects during a demo or presentation, as long as people dive into the juicy technical details.

Feeling undeterred? [Reach out](/docs/support/contact) and let's get to work!
