We had about 25 attendees at our most recent meeting, which was pretty good considering that with the mass power outage, our announcement didn't go out at all in print form in the schools in the district, and apparently didn't even get sent electronically to all the parents who sign up for electronic notification.
We've had as many as 50, I'd guess, and as few as 5 or 6 for really poorly advertised meetings. Getting the notes out in school makes a huge difference! Ours is also a pretty new group, actually, so I think it's growing and attendance is generally improving.
Oh, and I forgot a couple of REALLY popular meeting topics:
>Is my child gifted?
I'd HIGHLY recommend this one for a new group! It is especially good for a Sept. or Oct. meeting, when people are just realizing that things might not be all fine and dandy in school this year...
>Teaching math
This is where I got my goofy calc for 7yos idea. Everyone in the room was all fired up after we heard this guy speak.
We meet monthly. We used to meet in a meeting room at a local retirement home (cheap/free, but a bit weird: sometimes random elderly people would wander across in front of the speaker...). Now we meet at the nice new city building. Much nicer!
Be sure to scope out state and local authorities on GT kids for speakers. Often they'll speak for cheap/free, and they can sometimes even provide a topic for you (from a presentation they already have prepared) that will interest your group. Local psychologists, state officers of your "X Association for GT Children," heads of GT schools, GT coordinators, teachers of GT kids...all have spoken to our group and done a bang-up job. But roundtable discussion on a directed topic with no official speaker whatsoever can also be a great meeting. People often just need to talk!
We also have kids events once a month or so, separate from the adult meeting. That seems less well attended, but is hopefully growing.
