HOW IT ALL STARTED
It started at karaoke night at the Piper's Kilt in Inwood in January of 2007. That's where Josh, Colonel Tim, Claudia, Jeanne, Katy and J. met for the first time. After a long night of singing and drinking, we realized that we all wanted to find a way to stay connected and connect to other people in our neighborhood. The idea of a Meetup group came up and, right there, the Upper Manhattan Experience was formed! (Though it took a little while to officially get off the ground!)

WHAT WE'RE ALL ABOUT
The Upper Manhattan Experience is about fostering a sense of community among the people who live, work and like to hang out in the Inwood/Washington Heights area of Manhattan. Our goal is to break the anonymity among the people in our community, and bring people together to have fun, connect and make new friends. We want to both highlight events and activities happening in Inwood and Washington Heights, as well as events happening in other parts of the city. We are looking for people who are excited to meet one another and who want to have a good time! If that's you, come on in!

This is a group for community-building! We're about building connections, enjoying each other's company, and having fun. In addition to our recreational activities, we also do community service events, like park clean-up days or volunteering, and are always looking for ways to give back to the neighborhood.

WHO WE ARE
Josh, Claudia and J. are the organizers of this Meetup. We manage the site, post events and calendar notes, moderate the message boards (as necessary). We're all pretty busy with our jobs and such, but we devote a lot of time to managing this meetup. We can't be there for every event, but we'll make as many as our schedules allow. Have no fear, we have a lot of super-friendly members who regularly host events. They'll be happy to welcome you at any event we can't make.

HOW IT WORKS
While we have a few regular events (Karaoke at the Piper's Kilt, Trivia Night), we're open to all ideas and suggestions. We're happy to post almost any event for our members, but we ask that you provide a date, time and description and commit to being there as a host before we post it. We want this Meetup to be the best it can be, be super-active and a lot of fun. We just ask that you respect our time.

The only events that we're not interested in posting are those of a religious or political nature. We want to be open for all to feel welcome. While those kind of events may not be "events", feel free to post them on the message boards!

WHAT WE ASK
We ask members to contribute a voluntary $10 a year fee. That money goes to pay for the Meetup site, as well as to put towards bigger and better events (salsa lessons, djs, etc.). The fee is totally voluntary and not donating won't affect your membership in any way!

As we said, we're a community-building group, NOT a "singles" group, so we also ask that members only contact people they've already met at an event. That includes e-mails, shouts, what-have-you. Once you've made a mutual connection with someone at an event, take it from there!

At events, we ask that members respect each other and respect other people's boundaries. The same goes for e-mails and the message boards. Inappropriate, disrespectful behavior will NOT be tolerated! As moderators of the message boards, we can and will delete any posts that we deem inappropriate, disrespectful, offensive or damaging to the community at large. While this website is "public", that doesn't mean it's a "free fire zone". Trolls, stay away! Please let us know as soon as any member acts inappropriately in any way!

We reserve the right to remove any member at any time, with or without warning. We do want to give people a fair shake, so if we receive complaints from two different members about your behavior, you'll receive a warning from one of the organizers. A third complaint and you'll be removed from the group immediately. But we don't want it to get to that!

That's it! We're a fun bunch of people, and we'd be happy to have you join us!

- Josh, Claudia and J. (the crew at the U.M.E.)