I think that the one other thing that I would add is that all of these things take up time. Planning, setup, getting the word out, etc. Obviously that would be time spent by not only those who are interested in the groups, but also by those in the SAA staff office. Time costs money, and as a member, I want my money spent wisely. While I’m not necessarily going to agonize about every single thing that SAA does, in a time of budget cuts and curtailed spending, I sure hope that everything SAA does is related to our core professional mission. Particularly if there’s going to be a dues increase.

I have organized several informal meetings at recent SAA conferences–around topics such as use of Web 2.0, tips on getting grants, and the possibility of forming an interest group for archivists in AASLH. The people in the SAA office were very helpful about getting the information in the program and arranging for meeting room space. However, all of these meetings were clearly of a professional nature, and I’m not sure I would support SAA staff spending member resources to provide similar assistance to a group of dog-loving archivists. If your group is of a professional nature, my experience has been SAA will work with you.

And, yes, I got the word out about these informal meetings through the wiki, the listserv, and blogs. And we did the same for the Bloggers Get-Together we had in Chicago too. People who want to get together around topics that are primarily personal have many, many options for doing so. We do not need to spend member resources to support it.