I have been traveling for the past three weeks and haven't had a chance to post an update. There are some great things coming together for the Raleigh Meetup.
Big News
The Steemit Meetup it free. Better yet, the Cryptolina two-day blockchain conference is normally $499. We have set up the Steemit discount, which is far more generous than I originally anticipated. The event organizers are giving Steemit members a FIFTY percent discount. Half price. If you use the code STEEMIT50 your price to attend Cryptolina will only be $250. Again, you do not have to attend Cryptolina to attend the free Steemit meetup. But you are going to miss a great line up of speakers. I can't list all of the pending speakers, but I can confirm that Jeff Garzik, co-founder of Bloq (among other things) will be speaking at Cryptolina. There are a few other big names that are currently being firmed up as well.
The slate of speakers for Cryptolina is growing. It is promising to be an excellent event. One speaker I want to mention is a member of the Steemit community, 
One of the suggestions I have received is that we bring in a high profile speaker for the Steemit meetup. I know many of the speakers who are coming to Cryptolina and have one who has not confirmed yet who would be perfect for this event. But if he does not make it, I still intend on roping on of the other high profile attendees into coming to our Steemit meeting. Would having a high profile speaker make this event more attractive to anyone? There are two others who have been invited to Cyrptolina who I will ask to come speak here. I think attendees will be impressed with either of these speakers.
The biggest issue facing this plan right now is attendance. I am going to secure the venue at the convention center and cover the cost of drinks and snacks (maybe pizza). It ain't no meeting unless there are snacks, right? The only way we are going to ensure a decent turnout is to spread the word. So far this is what things looks like:
Confirmed or likely
Even if we only have six or eight people, we will still hold the meetup. I plan to provide information about the meet up to attendees of Cryptolina and invite anyone who is attending the crypto conference to come to our meeting as well. This is in hopes that we can recruit new members to the platform who already have a demonstrated interest in crypto.
The list is slowly growing. I will continue posting about this once a week. My request is that you resteem this post or send information about the event to people you think may be interested in attending. This promises to be a fun and informative opportunity for Steemians in our region to get together and discuss the platform. I really hope we can get a good turnout. I don't mind buying pizzas and drinks if we an get a good crowd together.
Now that we have the Meetup information out of the way, let me plug Cryptolina once again. The line up of speakers is going to be great. For $250 (using the code above), this is a steal. Among the speakers who will be attending are:
Jeff Garzik, Co-Founder of Bloq and CTO of Spacechain
JP Baric, Founder and CEO of MiningStore
Shannon Code, Co-Founder of $coval and EmblemVault
Aditi Sriram, Cons_Academy (ConsenSys)
Rik Willard, Founder of Agentic Group
Tyler K. Gibbons, Partner at Riser McLaurin & Gibbons LLC
There are several more speakers who are confirmed or pending.
Feel free to leave any suggestions, recommendations or comments you have about this event in the comments section. If you can think of a way to get wider distribution on this event across the platform, feel free to chime in.