The term "meeple" is short for "my people" and was originally coined
by one our Unity Gamers,  Alison H.
  The reason I made the pics was sort of a joke and sort of a sales
pitch.  You see I wanted to get some meeples of the kind you'll find
in Europa: 1945-2035 (or whatever its name is) and after a bit of
digging got in touch with Eurogames' supplier.  They sold them in
batchs of 1000s and the more you ordered the cheaper they were.  So in
order to get them as cheaply as possible I had to order 12,000 (2000
each in 6 different colors).  Well I didn't need 12,000 meeples to
myself, thus the pictures in the UG group ("See all the uses of
meeples! being the theme).
  There wasn't a whole lot of thought put into the pics and it was
done on my birthday in about 45 minutes time.

  The pics were taken using the 120 meeples you get in Europa, plus
the ones you get with Carcassonne.  Note that the meeples in Europa
are of 2 different sexes (skirts and no skirts), thus the 3 different
kinds of meeples you see.

  I managed to sell off almost all of the 12000 meeples (I have only a
few hundred left).  About a handful of folks actually bought up lots
of 1200 meeples to themselves and occassionally I hear interesting
stories of the uses they were put to, although I would imagine most
are collecting dust somewhere.