Austin No Kidding! (in Austin, Texas, USA) was a chapter of the International No Kidding! Childfree social club originally created by Jerry Steinberg of Vancouver, BC, Canada in 1984. The Austin chapter was formed by Janet Christian and Eric Marsh sometime around 1998, and officially disbanded in December, 2025 after being active for approximately 27 years. This page serves as a tribute and historical reference for those who had participated in the group, or who are looking for information about it.
Austin No Kidding! was formed sometime around 1998 by Janet Christian and Eric Marsh who lived in Cedar Park, Texas. At this time, many of their contemporaries were becoming parents and group social activities were primarily centered around their children. Janet & Eric were not interested in becoming parents, and were seeking like-minded people to join them in fun activities that did not involve children.
Early members of Austin No Kidding! (aside from Janet and Eric) were Hope Doty, Jeff Hurst, Mark Langsdorf, Joy Nyberg, Mark Strain, and Judy Strange. Most members found the Austin chapter through Internet searches that would ultimately land on the International or local chapter web sites, or through the social event sections of local newspapers such as The Austin Chronicle.
Consistent monthly activities were a dinner at Threadgill's, meeting for happy hour at Donn's Depot (generally going for hamburgers at a local burger joint afterwards), and games nights at Central Market. Other monthly activities included "restaurant explorers," where a new restaurant was chosen and everyone would meet for dinner, and movie night that was held at Janet & Eric's home.
As Austin No Kidding! grew in membership and the number of activities increased, it was becoming more and more difficult for the group to manage the activities through an email list and web site. Gil Kloepfer created a membership management and calendaring system that was later given over to Chris Fieldhouse, who continued to maintain and expand the system. A core group of approximately 12 members formed a volunteer organizational committee that helped coordinate activities and keep the group on-track.
In addition to the original monthly activities, there were now additional activities such as a book club, games & movie nights held at other members' homes, and roller skating. Special activites included potluck dinners, hiking, visiting the Exotic Resort Zoo in Johnson City, winery tours, cookie party, pie social, summer ice cream social, halloween party, and winter holiday party. Members were encouraged to suggest and host activities of interest.
To fund the nominal fees necessary to pay for the Internet services needed to host the web site and calendaring system, a "rent party" would be held every year or two as needed to solicit voluntary donations to pay for these services. Austin No Kidding! was otherwise free of dues and other fees, except those that were charged by the event venues themselves.
For a relatively short period of time, the club changed its name from "Austin No Kidding!" to "Austin Childfree." This was due to some difficulties surrounding the domain name and the usage of it. It is hard to determine the exact timeframes when the name change took place, then returned again to the original.
Around 2012, the home-grown calendaring system that had been used was converted to a WordPress-based system and managed by Lori & Emil Luza, as Lori had a wealth of WordPress experience. Also around 2012, Ryan Nims created a unique new logo for the club (the one listed above on this web site).
By 2016 it was becoming more and more difficult to manage the club's software by ourselves and having to maintain software updates. It was decided to migrate the club to use Meetup in order to avoid having to maintain our own computer software and to increase our exposure to prospective members. Meetup fees were funded through the "rent party" system mentioned previously.
In March, 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic social activities effectively shut down. There were a few meetings via Zoom, mostly for members to chat, play some card games online, and for the book club to continue meeting.
Post-pandemic, membership participation began to diminish. The only regular activity that was still happening was the Book Club. There were periodically a few dinners and other activities scheduled, but new membership was falling-off and activities did not have a large attendance.
Due to the falling participation and the lack of funds to pay for our Meetup group, in 2022 one of the book club participants, Jerrie Marchand, generously agreed to continue to host the Meetup group on her account along with her other Meetup groups.
In July, 2025, Jerrie announced that she was no longer hosting any Meetup groups except for the one for Austin No Kidding!, and the book club agreed that it would not be fair nor sustainable for Jerrie to continue solely paying for Meetup (her membership was due to expire in December, 2025).
This began the discussion to determine whether it was practical to maintain Austin No Kidding! as a club going forward. While there were over 550 members listed in the Meetup group, there were no regular activites except for Book Club. The number of activities and member participation never recovered after the pandemic, and most activities became small subsets of friends getting together outside of Meetup. As a result of all this, the decision was made to disband Austin No Kidding! and remove the Meetup group.
This summary was written by Gil Kloepfer and any errors, omissions, complaints, suggestions, or compliments about it should be directed to him. The reason for this web page is to provide historical insight into Austin No Kidding! for those interested. Many of the members, including Gil, consider the club to be a pivotal part of their lives. There were far too many people involved and who provided many hours of their time to the club to mention them all here, and it is not clear whether they wish to be mentioned in this summary.
While the pandemic was a primary cause for the club to lose momentum, there are probably other causes as well. Members hosting many of the activities moved from the Austin area. Post-pandemic, many people were not as comfortable with "strangers" being in their homes. The Austin metro area has expanded outward and in population, making it more difficult to meet in a location that is convenient for all members. Societal changes regarding what it means to be "childfree" as well as political and social changes have affected how people choose to gather and socialize. While Austin No Kidding! served a purpose at the time of its formation, the concept is not likely to adapt to the changing times.
Most of the historical information listed here came from memory, old email threads, and trips through The Internet Archive. Some future to-do items would be to include some old event photos (with members' permission) and screenshots of portions of the web site over time.
Last revised:
Tue Nov 4 16:37:00 CST 2025
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