Our usual location, Jumping Bean on Elizabeth Avenue, has changed its hours for the winter, such that it closes at 7pm.

So, we’ve returning to meetups on the third floor of the Queen Elizabeth II Library.

Thankfully, there’s still warm beverages to be had at the Jumping Bean location on the first floor, although the options are a bit more scarce than our previous location.

And, there’s plenty of tables to sit at / move around to construct our classic ‘big table’ setup, so we’ll be right at home.

If you have any ideas of other places the group can meet, feel free to join us on Discord and discuss in the events channel.

We’ve decided to move our main messaging platform from Slack to Discord!

Slack has done us well for quite a while, however in the time since the 2020 acquisition of Slack by Salesforce, there have been some changes to the direction of Slack that haven’t been great for this group.

Slack has been focusing more and more on its enterprise customers, and less and less on community-based groups like ours. We are now at almost 700 members (~150 active), and with a group that size, moderation tools become essential. Slack has locked the majority of the moderation tools behind their paid version, and has greatly reduced our ability to maintain this Slack organization. There have been only minimal features added to their free offerings. We also have concerns that in the long term, Slack will start further limiting their free offering, and given our size, we would definitely be caught up in those limits. We wouldn’t be against paying for Slack to get these features and more, but the cost would be outrageous unfortunately.

Discord, in comparison, has done a lot to support communities like ours. This includes strong moderation tools, built-in automations, and a monetization plan that supports community groups. While Discord isn’t perfect, and we know there are impacts on some folks in the group, we strongly believe this is a move we need to make now, before the decision is forced on us.

The Discord has already been active for sometime, with ever increasing waves of folks joining, and now has grown to ~140 members. While this number is a 1/7th of Slacks total numbers, its right on the dot for our active user count in Slack, so I think it’s safe to say it’s already been a success.

We have no plans to shut down this Slack organization anytime soon, and we expect this migration to take some time.

We welcome you to join us on Discord, if you’re new to how the platform functions, don’t fret to ask questions!

tl;dr: We have returned to having our meetups at the Jumping Bean on Elizabeth Avenue.

Primarily due to the early closing of the coffee shop at the Queen Elizabeth II Library during the summer hours, we have decided to return to the Jumping Bean location on Elizabeth Avenue. This location is not perfect, as it has less space than the QEII Library, and closes at 9 pm. However, after discussing with our members, the vast majority were in agreement that Jumping Bean was an overall better location.

For any students wishing to attend, Metrobus Route 2 is a direct route between the main campus and the Jumping Bean.

If you have any questions about the event, or the venue, please join our Discord Server or use our Contact Us form.

We look forward to meeting you in person!