Q: StarCircleAcademy has a Meetup Page, but signup is not allowed there, why?
A: There are several related issues…

• Our events are open to people who are NOT in Meetup and which are announced in other meetup groups.
• Using one place (our website) to gather signups means we can accurately track attendance. If we allow signups in multiple groups we could become over subscribed… you know, like the airlines.
• There are many more options available through our website (e.g. discounted rates, additional notes, extra nights… and these options are not possible in Meetup).
• Meetup takes a cut of fees paid and makes refunds, discounts, and add-ons impossible.
• Meetup restrictions on content and how we can display images and text means we cannot highlight, and fully describe what we feel you need to know!
• For webinars and other events where there are materials to be sent, it’s not possible to automatically send you what you need. Through our website, timely delivery of materials  is automated (and immediate).
• Because of the way payments are handled in Meetup, we can’t even know WHO has made payments. Meetup names and email addresses are never linked together, indeed email addresses are not revealed in Meetup. Moreover, many people use short, or unrelated names in Meetup. Paypal may know someone as William Lawrence Smith, while in Meetup they are Larry S, and their email address is coleslaw@gmail.com – we stand zero chance of tying the names, email address and meetup handles together. And this happens A LOT.
• By processing payments through PayPal here on our website, we are guaranteed that you are a real person with a valid email address that we can use to reach you – PayPal does the verification.
• On Meetup it’s possible to turn off all emails, but the only way we have to notify Meetup members is via the Meetup mechanism. We got weary of angry people “who never got the message” but it’s because Meetup doesn’t deliver them – or the user has ignored them because they get spammed by Meetup!
• Meetup constantly, and inconveniently makes changes to their tooling that make it nearly impossible to keep content organized and clear. And content that is “old” expires and is lost.
• Meetup discussions, messages and communication mechanism are broken, easily hijacked and very often abused by spammers and miscreants. That is part of the reason why so many people (the authors included) disable communication on Meetup.

Note that SOME of our free – unrestricted events – allow sign up on Meetup.

Q: So are you saying that you dislike Meetup?
A: Did you catch that?  There are good things about Meetup, really, but the problem is Meetup is like whack-a-mole. Every time we find a Meetup process that works well, Meetup fixes it.