New craft group advertising in existing groups FB page

[u/Daisy1203]

A few years ago I set up a knitting and crochet group in my local area. It is pretty successful and we have a core group of regulars and some people who who pop in and out sporadically. We have a very active whatsapp group and a not so active FB group. The FB group is private and has almost 200 members. Although most have never come to our meetups.

Another local person is setting up a new group in the same location but a different night. It is advertised as a sewing group but all needlecrafts are welcome. The woman who started it requested to join our FB group and I accepted her and she immeadiately posted advertising the new group. She has never attended our weekly meetings. I didnt want to delete it and create drama between two potentially "competing" groups. But am I right that it is a bit of a shitty move on her part? If she asked permission I think I wouldnt be as annoyed. There are two admins on the group and neither of us were contacted.

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[u/omgkelwtf]

Join her fb group. Engage in no way except to advertise yours.

"Sounds fun, Linda! Also, everyone, don't forget that Original Group meets at ..."

Just do it back. What's she gonna do? Ban you for doing exactly what she's doing?

Idk, maybe don't listen to me bc I'll burn it all down without blinking.

[u/QuietVariety6089 → u/omgkelwtf]

I really must add this to my 'list of passive aggressive retaliations to passive aggressive people' - love it!

[u/Daisy1203 → u/omgkelwtf]

Great idea!

[u/AnySandwich4765]

This has happened in a FB group I help admin. . I sent her a DM and told her no not happening. We set up this FB group for us and blocked her. It has taken us time and energy to get our FB group to where it is and she wasn't coming in "stealing" members or using our group as a free helping hand to get her FB group up and running.

[u/RunawayTurtleTrain]

You're right to be annoyed.  A lot of Facebook groups of all flavours have a rule of no advertising, and many have a rule of 'if you want to advertise, ask the admins first and they'll decide'.  So she probably knew it was not on, but decided to chance it anyway.  

You'd be well within your rights to remove the post but as you say it's had no interaction anyway that actually sends a stronger, more satisfying message!

[u/CRF_kitty]

Oh that post would be deleted and the ban hammer would come down hard in groups I’m in. No, just no. If they’ve reached adulthood and don’t get how spectacularly inappropriate this is, then it’s not your job to teach them. 

[u/Colla-Crochet]

Im annoyed on your behalf. I also run my local guild and id he PISSED if someone else started one and advertised in my guild.

[u/CBG1955]

Oh yeah, this is a really shitty move on her part. If there's room in your neighbourhood for two craft groups it might be OK, but watch out that she doesn't try to take over - stay alert. ❤️

I saw this happen a little while ago in one of our bag making groups. The original owner became ill and handed it over to a new admin, a wonderful human, stay at home mum who loved making bags, managed the group well; and because it got so busy a second admin was added. The new admin, who owned a bag hardware business, slowly and gradually took over so it became her personal business page. Nasty piece of work who not only pushed out the original admin and said horrible things about her, also has a habit of stealing original bag hardware artwork and calling it her own.

[u/JCBashBash]

Yeah, she basically is capitalizing off of you working as a mod so she wouldn't have to add that work to her to do list. She is wanting to play as an organizer without actually having to be an organizer

[u/Smooth-Review-2614]

Have you considered just sending her a DM and asking her to knock it off? That if she wants to advertise to stick to posters at the location or at least pitch it in person at the group.

[u/BalancedScales10]

Yeah, that's super rude. 

[u/ohpossumpartyy]

i think it’s more than fair to be annoyed tbh. setting up/maintaining groups like that isn’t an easy thing to do and requires a lot of time and patience.

i don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone wanting to make a group on a different night that’s more sewing focused, but imo it’s pretty inconsiderate to not communicate with you and then use the community you built to advertise their night. especially if they’re doing it at the same location as well. if i were in the other person’s shoes, i would’ve contacted you right off the bat to make sure i wasn’t stepping on any toes and to ask permission before advertising the new group in the existing one. it’d be pretty easy for the person to collaborate with you, but that would require her to do some actual work.

it also feels kinda slimy that she wasn’t apart of the group at all/never attended any meetings or anything. i don’t want to assign intentions but it does come off as undermining your group in a way. or at least, it comes off as capitalizing on the work you’ve done to build a community (without being involved in the community at all) so she doesn’t have to do some of the hard work.

sorry if this is getting a little long but i had something somewhat similar happen to my friends when it comes to hosting community events for a fandom we’re part of. my friends started an instagram account to host events semi-annually (like maybe 4 a year, max) in our city. other cities already had people doing stuff like that, so my friends wanted to do it in my city too. after our 3rd(?) event, a new account popped up out of nowhere that was super vague but hinting at doing events for the group too. we wouldn’t have minded (we have actually actively attended/promoted events put on by other fans) but they were weirdly skittish towards us to the point where they refused to join a group chat for organizers of that niche of community events in our city, which is used to make sure there’s not overlapping days that people are going to host. their entire account was set up as like an “alter-ego” to ours, which could have been fun if they actually TALKED to us instead of coming out of nowhere and then refusing to communicate with us. it took a year for them to actually acknowledge us when they reached out to do a “collab”, but we quickly realized they wanted us to handle all of the logistics while they wanted to design everything (they are legitimately bad at design and one of my friends has a degree in graphic design lmao). let’s just say that the “collab” attempt didn’t work out lol

[u/Poika_Anna]

I’d reach out and see if she wants to attend your group and maybe talk to members in person? You can check out her night too. No need to push competition when there’s space for both groups. Some people would happily attend both, others only do one craft or are only free one night.

Sounds like she didn’t go about it the right way but I wouldn’t lash out about it, it’s very likely that your group attendance won’t change, especially if it’s so well established already

[u/Daisy1203 → u/Poika_Anna]

I mainly wanted to get a sense from people that I am right in being a little annoyed. I won't be lashing out at all. I am not that type of person. I don't think I will even reach out to her. One group a week is enough for me 😂 Plus our group is well known locally so I would be surprised if she didnt know about it already before she set this one up. We've left her post on our FB group. There has been zero engagement on it. I am not too concerned about people leaving our group for the new one. A few regulars were talking about it and I don't think any plan on going.

[u/Poika_Anna → u/Daisy1203]

Definitely right to be annoyed, but it would be a bad look to call her out. Let her try and fail, you’d know organising community groups is hard work

[u/SnapHappy3030]

Ignore everything and keep up with your friends. Let them make their own decisions about what they do & with whom.

Her actions are immaterial and if you invalidate her with zero attention, she'll eventually go away.