I am keen to know if anything did ACTUALLY happen or not, or if the couple ended up waiting in vain at the designated spot at the designated time (23h00), and then eventually just had to do their own thing anyway? If something DID happen, this would be great news for the aspirant Gauteng dogging community!! But somehow I have my doubts about this having materialised, for a number of reasons.... But maybe I'm just too cautious and hyper-critical? Perhaps we can learn some lessons from this that might help to increase the success rate for future events, as the weather improves and outdoor dogging season is upon us?
1. The advert was placed under the Dogging Locations menu. This seems to be happening to an increasing extent, even though it does not really seem an appropriate vehicle. I have learned to monitor the Dogging Locations menu regularly, but I am not sure that this is the most effective place (in terms of reaching your target audience) to announce a "limited duration" activity, due to non-contactability. Or is it? Maybe I am misguided?
2. The advert was placed (or only released?) in the afternoon for an activity planned for THAT same night. I believe this seriously limits your chances of getting many "views" of your advert, which then drastically reduces your chances if you want to get a big group together. Perhaps a little more "advance notice" would help?
3. The advert was posted anonymously (maybe intentionally, but I think a lot of folks haven't worked out that if you post something on the Dogging Locations page, your signature is not automatically attached, and the poster cannot be identified or contacted). I would have liked to contact the poster, to confirm my intention to get involved, and to get more details about access to the site. So I needed to have the poster's site name in order to make contact, but didn't have it.
4. The access point to the site is described as "the hole in the fence where the dogwalkers enter". I went to do a recce of the site earlier in the evening, and no-where along the area mentioned (Beyers Naude Drive boundary) could I find a hole in the fence. If I couldn't find it at 6:30pm when the area was only slightly dodgy to park and walk around in, I'm wondering how many guys were able to find it at 11 pm when the area would be even more dodgy, and guys walking up and down the fenceline looking for a hole could easily be the target of unwanted attention, by cops or other undesirables. And if you can't find the starting point, you haven't a hope in hell of following the rest of the directions.....
5. Then the meeting place would be "at the trees" about 500m away, and unfortunately there are a LOT of trees in the park at Emmarentia. So the area to head towards, assuming you could find the entrance hole in the fence, was rather vague...
It's obvious that the poster knows the area, and knew exactly where he intended to have the meet happen. But not everyone who (fortuitously) sees the advert, and is able to respond (at short notice), necessarily knows the area as well as him, and I expect many could have given up after not being able to find the starting point...
But I would LOVE to be pleasantly surprised, and find out that a group of guys WERE able to find out about the event in time, and then DID find the expectant couple at the designated spot, and that there were a lot of happy people afterwards!!!!! If you were the poster of the "advert" or a participant (or wanna-be participant) at this event, I would love to hear from you, either here on the forum, or by means of a PM. To the dude who posted the advert, I'm NOT knocking you! I commend you for your gumption!!!! (but at the same time am hoping to increase the success rate for dogging events such as this)
I would also like to hear views from others interested in dogging, as to whether you think a meet like this could in fact work out, or how we could more effectively arrange dogging meets.
There is a lot of "hit and miss" stuff posted on this site, and I think that is what results in a perceived "low success rate" for dogging events. I believe the most effective way to arrange a dogging meet is for a willing couple to post an advert, stating their intention to "go dogging", initially giving just "general" information, such as JHB / Emmarentia area, on a particular day (eg next week Wednesday, in the evening), and then invite personal messages from those interested. From the millions of responses (from all the single guys! :wink: ) they could then check profiles and decide who they would like to have join them, and THEN provide the DETAILED information about time and specific locality and meet-up arrangements only to those they have selected. This way you can limit numbers, and you are not providing detailed information in a public space (remember, this website can be monitored by folks who are not members of the site, including the fuzz and wanna-be muggers) about a planned activity, and so can avoid "unwanted responses".
Anybody else have views on this matter?
