A week ago, Oct. 13th, Kossacks from Virginia, DC, and Maryland met up at Union Station DC. Turnout was excellent, as were the conversations. This venue worked out better than I'd hoped, and I am thinking about having a meetup there again in the spring.
We met at the lower level, the food court. I had thought we might drift upstairs after awhile, but everyone seemed happy staying where we were. We pulled tables together and when new people joined us, we pulled over more tables. The other thing that was neat about this meetup was that people moved around so that we all had a chance to talk to a lot of different people.
Here is a list of the attendees:
1. JamieG from Md
2. her husband
3. webgenie
4. JTinDC
5 sreeizzle2012
6. it really is that important
7. Trs
8. billlaurelMD
9. Mollyd
10. Pademocrat
11. Teacherken
12. Cpinva
13. Sturunner
14. his spouse
15. yellowdog
16. her spouse
17. Malachite
18. randomfacts
19. IndieGuy
20. his spouse
21. Oxley
22. gmfbard
23. his spouse
24. a gilas girl
25. dccid
26. Ooshwashington
27. Rockwell
28. Captainlaser
29. JG in MD
30. cobart
31. cobart's son
If you were there and I forgot to list you, please let me know.
Trying to get this many Kossacks from so many directions together is, to use a cliche, like herding cats. Getting cell phone numbers in advance was very helpful in making this meetup a success.
JTinDC went above and beyond in going to Union Station earlier in the week to scout out an optimum location, which had plenty of tables and was about as uncrowded as you can get at a busy terminal. The nametags he provided were also extremely helpful in helping us to keep track of new faces.
Mimi provided a map of the station, but unfortunately, she couldn't make it because she had a work emergency come up at the last minute.
There were a lot of good discussions, as you can imagine would be the case with this many members of Daily Kos. If you were there, please comment on what you talked about in the comments.
A lot of us talked about what we were doing to GOTV. Some of the Marylanders have been coming to Virginia to canvas or help with voter registration.
I still haven't sorted out all the discussions I had, and who I met. One couple lives near me in Loudoun. I was thrilled to find someone nearby.
I was spending a lot of the on my cell phone, making sure that everyone who was coming knew where to find the group, then crossing them off the list as they arrived (or adding new ones that I didn't know were coming). While I was doing that, my husband was at another table having what looked like several lively conversations. One time when I told someone I was from Ashburn, he told me, "That guy there is from Ashburn." Yeah, we've met.
I'm looking forward to having another meetup for our area soon.