Welcome to the New in Barcelona community!

Hello, my name is Ricardo de la Torre and I’m the owner of the expat community ‘New in Barcelona’ and controller of the below Facebook communities:

WELCOME to our WhatsApp communities! I will explain to you how the community works…

About the Community

Basically, these groups are meant to help members of the community connect with each other and suggest or join different activities in Barcelona, or support each other on topics like job and apartment searching. Ultimately, we hope you meet friends and feel a sense of community, especially if you’ve just arrived in the city.

I have around 100 WhatsApp groups and 2 Telegram groups, some of which are used for events I regularly organize within the community (weekly meetups, weekend excursions, language exchanges) and others which are open for members to suggest activities and plan activities together (eg. Beach volleyball, running, dancing, festivals). You can find the full list of WhatsApp groups here.

We have regular weekly meetings every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at La Terraza de La Marina Bar-Restaurant (Carrer de la Marina 22)

I also regularly organize excursions such as walking tours around Barcelona (7-24km) and day trips to places like Montserrat, Girona, Sitges, and more. In the summer we enjoy organizing community picnics in the park or beach and sometimes we even organize group dinners and karaoke nights. You can check the upcoming calendar here to see what we have planned for the month.

Every 2 months we also organize one big BIMONTHLY MEETUP where we expect between 70 to 130 attendees – Mark your calendar and don’t miss out!

We suggest you to join the WhatsApp sub-groups of your interests to connect with people who have common interests, for example if you want to meet people for board games, bachata dancing, going to the cinema, or playing a particular sport.

In the events that I do, there are many members who join regularly so you can easily form friendships, and also there will always be new people who are joining for the first time.

Suggestions and Rules for the WhatsApp Groups

Firstly, we suggest to put the WhatsApp group messages on silent because we don’t want you to receive too many notifications, especially if someone writes at 5am in the morning! (In the WhatsApp group go to the Settings in the top right corner and choose ‘Mute notifications’)

Secondly, please remember that all New in Barcelona events are free for you to attend* and I do not get paid as the organizer – This is my hobby for after work! (*At bar meetings it’s expected to buy at least one drink to support the bar, and we do occasionally organize dinners or events where we will always mention the cost beforehand.)

The Rules:

Respect the other people
Do not harass fellow group members or send unsolicited private messages. If they don’t want to talk with you in private, respect it. This is not Tinder. We have a Singles group but it is also not allowed to send private messages there unless someone explicitly gives their consent in the group chat. If someone writes to you in private who you don’t know and don’t want to interact with, please send me a screenshot so that I can send them a warning and repeat the rules.
I have the right to kick anyone out of the group who does not follow the rules
- Yellow card and warning for first offence
- Red card and you are expelled for 3 months
- Forever-ban if you have done something very bad
- I will announce yellow and red cards publicly in the group chat as well as privately.

Do not advertise events which are similar to New in Barcelona events but by other meetup organizations (Eg. Recurring language exchanges, activities which conflict with New In Barcelona meetups). You can talk in private with the fellow members that are your friends already and attend these activities, but please do not advertise as it might attract less people to our existing meetings.
- Acceptable: Invitations to a concert, jazz club, theater, cinema, dinner, sport
- Unacceptable: Invitations to attend a Couchsurfing meetup on the same evening as our Friday meetup
- Acceptable: Speaking with your NIB friends in private to go to another event
Please avoid talking about controversial topics such as religion and politics – Keep it light-hearted!
No discussions about drugs (Alcohol is okay)
By joining our groups you consent to the following:
- Occasional private messages from admin to inform you about special events (Eg. Bimonthly meetups)
- Group photos and videos during the events which we used for marketing

Support the Community:

This community is people-powered and we highly value any support you can offer, especially liking, following, subscribing, and sharing our social media efforts:

Please take 1 minute to subscribe and follow our accounts – it helps us a lot!

THANK YOU and enjoy being part of the New in Barcelona community!