Background

Nova Labs announced events and registered participants on Meetup.com until Meetup lost the ability to collect registration fees on November 10, 2020. To replace Meetup, Nova Labs selected Wild Apricot to process registrations and collect fees. Meetup2apricot copies events from Meetup to Wild Apricot.

The Players

Nova Labs is a makerspace in Reston, Virginia with over 350 members (as of September 2020). Nova Labs members can access a woodshop, a metal shop, laser cutters, 3D printers, an electronics bench, sewing and embroidery machines, vinyl cutters, a blacksmithing forge, and many other maker tools. To build communities of makers, Nova Labs offers a busy schedule of classes, meetings, workshops, and other events to its members and guests. Figure 1 shows a few dozen Nova Labs members.

Group photo inside Nova Labs of members and their projects

Figure 1. Nova Labs community members (c. 2018).

Meetup.com is a web-based service that helps organize physical and virtual events for people with similar interests. Meetup.com maintains a database of events, provides event web pages, and handles attendee registration details. Equally important, Meetup.com suggests other related events to participants, helping event organizers to reach potential new attendees.

Nova Labs maintains its full calendar of events on Meetup. Figure 2 shows the Meetup calendar for one week of Nova Labs events.

Screenshot of a Meetup calendar of events at Nova Labs

Figure 2. An example of a Meetup calendar of events at Nova Labs.

Wild Apricot is a web-based membership management system targeted toward non-profit organizations. Wild Apricot maintains a customizable database of members and other contacts. Members and contacts may register for events, puchase products, make donations, and view web pages, all within the Wild Apricot framework. Wild Apricot provides organization administrators summary and detail informations about member activity. (Figure 3) shows part of the top level Wild Apricot dashboard for Nova Labs.

Screenshot of the Wild Apricot dashboard for Nova Labs which shows membership level counts, upcoming events, recent emails, etc.

Figure 3. The Wild Apricot dashboard summarizes Nova Labs member activity.

Meetup Ends Support for Registration Fees

Payment processor WePay terminated its services for Meetup on November 10, 2020. Meetup hopes to have a new event fee system in early 2021. When Meetup provided a one-month notice to its customers, Nova Labs reviewed options for paid event registration, selecting Wild Apricot.

Wild Apricot Concept of Operation

Beginning November 10, 2020, Meetup events will be mirrored on Wild Apricot. The Nova Labs Events Team will add links from Meetup events to their Wild Apricot counterparts. Members and others who discover events via Meetup can click the provided link to view and register for the same event in Wild Apricot. The Nova Labs web site links will direct members and visitors directly to events in Wild Apricot. Event registration payments will be collected and tracked by Wild Apricot.

The Nova Labs Information Technology Team initiated several projects to support the rapid transition to Wild Apricot.

  • Spaceman2apricot to load and synchronize member data with the existing Spaceman maker space management program.

  • Meetup2apricot to load events from Meetup to Wild Apricot.

  • Wild Apricot web site layout and styling.

  • Many other smaller changes.