The Beginning

Purpose of this blog

© Can Stock Photo/Mik122

The Informal Private Club Journal has a three-fold purpose; 1) develop the concept of information private clubs, 2) to document my experiences in organizing and hosting social events for informal private clubs, and  3) to offer lessons learned and alternative approaches to those socials. Once I'm covering those topics to my satisfaction, I plan to go into detail regarding planning, appropriate fashion, and tools of the trade, so to speak. To be sure, I'm not being prescriptive, only laying out my experience and research for folks to use. I want to encourage people to get out, connect, and have a lot of fun doing it.

Eventually, the subject matter may change organically depending on my experiences and level of enjoyment, or if I develop a readership,  and where they want me to take the blog. Regardless, I want to remain focused on informal private clubs.

My experience
I've always wanted to organize people in some form or fashion, whether it be a gaming group, historical reenacting, or some other event. I helped organize gaming groups, reenacting group and reenactments, the occasional wedding and bachelor party.

My first resounding success came when my wife and I organized a local gaming group though Meetup.com. I'm an avid tabletop roleplay gamer, and we recognized a need to get folks from different or even disparate groups to meet each other and play the games we all loved. This group grew and evolved, but it kept its core the purpose of helping gamers connect with each other. As we grew and expanded, we discovered that our gaming group was doing more than just getting gamers to meet. It was allowing folks an excuse to get out, and facilitating lasting friendships. It even took on the role of a career network and dating service! I think the friendship building is the part we're most proud of, and what gives us the most satisfaction.

We took our organizing experience in a different direction, and began to organize small social club-like gatherings. These were and still are smashing successes. We plan to expand these gatherings to include more folks. This is also when I took the notion to start writing about my experiences, after some urging from a good friend in our gaming group. He wanted to know our 'secret' about organizing folks. This started some retrospective thinking on my part about how to improve gatherings, and to see what the different rules were for corresponding gatherings.

Your part
Please help me improve this blog, if you're getting something out of it. In the comments, suggest topics we can cover, or tell us about your experiences organizing folks for your informal private club, and how you handled the challenges that arose. All I ask is that you keep comments topical. Thanks for reading, and let's start a fun adventure!