Adding a Casual Meet to your IPC

We’ve talked about add-on events with some structure, salons, cocktail parties, and supper clubs. How about an add-on event without any real structure? Something where you can stake out some space and let the event happen. Casually. Try a Casual Meet (not to be confused with hooking up!). This is probably the easiest type of event you can schedule. The huge advantage of the Casual Meet is that it goes with every basic type of IPC. Social, hobby, professional, or field, it fits everything. In a way, it’s the bean-bag chair of IPC events.

What exactly is a Casual Meet? Here’s the simple explanation – it’s an unstructured meeting to allow people (IPC members) to meet in a causal environment. While it’s easy to run, you’ll need to do some prep work ahead of time. It can be held anywhere that has space for people to move about and talk. My gaming group has a causal meet at a stand-alone coffee shop that treats us like gold. Then again, gamers are well known for their sugar and caffeine addictions. It’s a match made in heaven.

The hardest part is finding a place to meet. You can do it at home, but a house is a private space that is an unknown for some folks. Unless I’ve been to someone’s house more than a couple times, I find that I’m not completely comfortable. I suggest finding a quiet space at a coffee shop, restaurant or similar business. I whole-heartily recommend coffee shops, because they’re laid back and/or generally quiet places that don’t get too upset if some folks don’t partake. Be careful with restaurants. I find a certain tension exists if you have folks attend your event that have no intention of eating and drinking something. It’s taking away from the restaurant’s business, and some places become squirrelly about it eventually. I suggest talking to the owner or a manager before you plan a casual meet at their business. This way you can feel whether they would welcome your club’s presence or if they seem to be dubious.

Casual meets are just that, a causal meeting. Don’t try to impose a structure or force conversation, but do make introductions between people who may not know each other, or with new folks who are attending this as a first event. As a matter of fact, casual meets are a great first event for new club members. Talk should be organic and free-flowing, and as an event organizer all you’re doing is being the welcome-wagon and event closer. Then you’ll realize that your casual meet was the easiest and most fun event you’ve run yet.

Organizing your IPC Membership

If you’ve recruited several members into your IPC, you might want to start asking for volunteers, or organizing boards, committees and the such to help run the club. I can tell you, without a doubt, this is a hard task. In my experience, most folks want to participate in club functions, and then leave it at that. A small committed handful will volunteer to do more. It’s your task as the IPC organizer to think of ways that members can volunteer in a meaningful way.  It’s up to you to find the committed handful, and expand them into couple hands full.

Before you ask for help, know what you’re asking for first. It’s easy to get caught up in the operations of the club to see what can be done. But if you don’t have an idea of what you want help with, or want folks to do, you’ll confuse and scare away potential volunteers. If you’re running a monthly Salon or Casual Meet that has a good turn-out and very little moderation, those might be events you can turn over to a volunteer. You may even consider designing a volunteer board for sign-ups. This can be managed many ways. One way I’ve seen is to suggest an event and estimate the volunteers needed. Then tentatively post the date for the event with the stipulation that it needs the list volunteer spots to be filled before it becomes a scheduled event.

In running any group, a committee of the right people can go far to help the club grow. Volunteers can do things, but committees provide extra brain power. Please don’t confuse these committees with PTA, civic club, or other organization committees that are droll and boring, because they must operate under tight rules and regulations.  On the other hand, IPC committee is a brain trust that has an overriding interest in keeping the club’s programming fresh and vital. While the committee must conform to club by-laws, these shouldn’t be so constricting as to limit creativity.

 Since your IPC members have been interviewed or recommended, you already have a base of the ‘right’ people. When you have enough people, let’s say ten or more, consider forming a steering committee. This committee can serve as the brains of the IPC. You’ll need to serve as leader for a few meetings, but at some point, you may want to have the committee elect a new head on a yearly basis. This way, the IPC can function independently of one person. Eventually, the committee should be elected by the club’s membership with by-laws in place to guide the election process. I recommend keeping the committee small, no more than seven members for a larger IPC, and no more than 5 for a small (less than ten) to medium (11-50) -sized IPCs.

Don’t be one of those organizers that goes about organizing alone. You’ll burn out very quickly. Also, realize you’ll need to let got and allow the membership to make the IPC a living organization that doesn’t depend on you to keep it moving forward..

Designing Member Guidelines

Last week, I posted “When Should You Consider By-Laws?”, which covered when to begin writing actual rules that your members (and you too!) follow in matters of the IPC. In this post, I’ll introduce the ‘lite’ version of by-laws, 'Guidelines.'

In short, guidelines are suggested standards that you want members to follow in dealing with the club and other members. Unlike by-laws, guidelines are not hard and fast rules, but a guide to follow at the request of the club. Also, unlike by-laws, they’re not enforceable. They can stand alone, or work in tandem with by-laws, becoming in enforceable in the context of the IPC. In those two instances, one is to assist your members when there are no by-laws, and the other are areas where solid by-laws are not needed, but some guidance is needed and can be referred to via the by-laws.

In “When Should You Consider By-Laws?”, I suggest waiting until your IPC is large enough to need by-laws that are written and enforced. This is not to say that you shouldn’t create some basic guidelines to define the expectations of the club and its members. If you have a social club, some common-sense behavior and etiquette guidelines can be established. By the way, for more information on behavior and etiquette, refer to the “A Matter of Manners” post. Guidelines can go above and beyond behavior and etiquette. In “Finding the right members for your IPC,” I introduced the fictional Atlantic Philatelist Club. This club is all about postage stamps, so guidelines would involve meeting attendance, or expectations of presentations or meetings that members host. I haven’t of stamp collectors getting too far out of hand, so behavior and etiquette guidelines would be less than that of a socially-oriented club. These guidelines will help inform the base of any by-laws your club decides on.

Once you have by-laws on paper, you may have some areas that don’t need to be covered by-laws, you may be waiting to see by-laws might be necessary in the future, or there is an area where the situation might be too dynamic to have by-laws. Let’s say that the Atlantic Philatelist Club has established in the by-laws each member must host one meeting a year to remain in good standing with the club. While this is a solid by-law, it might point to guidelines on the minimum standards for a meeting, which don’t need to be covered in the by-laws. With those guidelines, you might also stipulate that the meeting organizer must be in attendance. It’s not a problem now, but if the situation arises consistently, then that stipulation might be promoted to a by-law in the future. In another instance, you may have guidelines that discourage bringing stamp collections to certain meetings, but you also see that this guideline may need to be bypassed for special occasions. 

While I suggested waiting on establishing by-laws, guidelines can be established close to the start of an IPC. However, I also recommend getting member suggestions and feedback, if not shared ownership of the club’s guidelines.

Book review: How to Talk to Anyone; 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships

How to Talk to Anyone; 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships by Leil Lowndes is a solid book in the realm of self-help writing. She comes from the perspective of offering actionable advice. For the most part, she delivers sound advice. If you’ve read other self-help books, some of her advice will be familiar, albeit couched in a way you can use in real life. Also, the book’s tips covers many situations you’ll eventually find yourself dealing with. Information-wise, How to Talk to Anyone is a value, if not an investment.

In an IPC setting, How to Talk to Anyone is handy. It can be used for handling people and building relationships. While some of the tips may not relate directly, there some gems that you can consider using to improve your organizing and hosting game. In aspect, this book is an investment just for its IPC value.

The only real downsides to How to Talk to Anyone is the sheer volume of tips. I listened to this as an audio book, so its use will be limited to me, unless I buy a physical or electronic version where I can use it more effectively as a reference. Bear that in mind before you buy the audio version. The other downside is that some of the information is ages-old self-help advice, so you’re not getting a completely new list of tips. Admittedly, this is me looking for faults in the book, and you can easily gloss over the information you’re already using or doesn’t pertain to your situation.

I recommend this book, particularly if you want to limit your foray into the self-help genre, but have a reference of pertinent information you can use immediately.

IPC Inspirations: Tabletop Gaming

An easy and very popular IPC to create is one based on any form of gaming. In this post, I’ll concentrate on two forms of gaming; board gaming and table top roleplaying games. In future posts, I’ll write about other popular games such as bridge, caroom, chess, go and others. Also, this is a subject I can speak to personally, so I’m excited to be writing on it. As I mentioned in "The Beginning," I currently run a roleplaying games Meetup group, and it inspired my interest in organizing groups as a whole.

Gaming as an IPC

Gaming has long been presented as an open group activity; you go to a game store, or find a Meetup or Facebook site, see if there are any people playing the games you're interested in and get a tip on who’s playing when, and if they’re taking players. You might find a group interested in taking you, but often, it’s not an ideal match. There are several reasons for the mismatch, which often includes conflicting personalities.Chances are high for sub-optimal experience. An IPC could be the remedy for folks looking for a better experience with tabletop games.

The games we play
If you're considering a gaming hobby IPC, you'll want to make sure you can find local people who play the same games that you do. As board gaming is concerned, some of the more popular titles can probably hold their own, such as Settlers of Catan or Diplomacy, but you may want to opt for a general type of game if you like playing some of the lesser known titles. German-style games would be a popular pick, as well as board wargames like Squad Leader (which could probably stand on its own).  You can also fit board (or rod) hockey and similar games in this category too.

Speaking for roleplaying game IPCs, a club form around Dungeons & Dragons can easily stand on its own as well as Pathfinder. Certain genre or rules drive RPGs would also do very well, such as games based on the works of HP Lovecraft, which has always had a devoted niche of players and fans, and well as the FATE generic roleplaying game system, which also has a devoted following.

Caution needs to be exercised when deciding on a game IPC. Some popular games sweep the industry like a storm, and then fade away just as quickly. Unless you're looking at a game that has been in print for a while, and still hold its popularity, you may want to look at a specific genre instead.

Activities are key
It goes without saying that your membership has joined to play games, so your basic event programming would revolve around  Game Days. Game Days  mean many things to different gamers, but in my experience, it a block of time divided into sessions. People will offer to host a table, or be a game master (if an RPG). Other interpretations of a Game Day can range from more or less structured.

Gamers also love to talk and replay their past games, so allowing for this to happen would be a great boon to a gaming IPC. You might consider adding casual meetings (I'll cover this later as an IPC add-on) to your event programming. Casual meetings (or Casual Meets as I like calling them) are simple gatherings at coffee shops or other low-key establishments that offer a relaxed and preferably quiet atmosphere. The goal is to simple mingle, talk, and build relationships.

Other add-on events would take some forethought, but they could be customized to fit your IPC's needs. Salons would be simple, the topics can discuss different aspects of the game. We'll explore more possibilities in upcoming blog posts.

Membership
This can be a sticky issue with IPC organizers and gamers alike. Both aspects of the gaming hobby attract both personable and non-so personable people. Tabletop RPG has had the notion that its players are all male and play these games their basements. While this stereotype died years ago, for the most part, some gamers still lend to the illusion that this image is still alive and well. As an IPC organizer, you need to have a very clear concept for your gaming IPC, and the members you'd like to take part. Re-read "Basic Ideas for Recruiting Members to your IPC" and "Finding the right members for your IPC" to start formulating a membership strategy.

A gaming IPC can be one of the easiest and rewarding clubs to create. If you want your gaming to rise to a higher level, consider this avenue.

Adding a Cocktail Party to your IPC

IPCs are all about giving people the opportunity to mingle socially, and the cocktail party is a staple of active social-oriented groups.

In this blog, I’ve written about Salons, and these can often take a cocktail party-ish guise. But the difference between the two is substantial. You can think of one being somewhat smart and scholarly, and the other one being all about the fun.

Cocktail parties can keep the life of an IPC lively by keeping everyone busy on the social front. Most everyone enjoys talking, and this helps people get to know each other on a casual level. It also creates connections that give your club greater depth. Cocktail parties need not be stressful, so keep everything as simple as possible, and if you’re hosting, enjoy it too. You might be finding yourself playing social cop, but this, at least in my experience, is very rare.

Here's a couple of quick tips. First, you may want to monitor any alcohol provided or brought by guests, and keep folks honest about consumption. In my experience, most folks are reasonable about drinking, but there always seems to be person who has some issues with self-control. Also, make sure that guests are acquainted with each other so no time is wasted with awkwardness. Re-read the "Effective Introductions" post from last month to brush up on how to introduce guests.

Articles about Cocktail Parties:

Wikipedia, “Cocktail party”

Epicurious, “How to Throw a Cocktail Party”

The Spruce, “Everything You Should Know for Hosting a Flawless Cocktail Party”

The Nest, “5 Fun Cocktail Party Themes”

HuffPost, “10 Lessons We Could All Learn From 1960s CocktailParties”

wiseGEEK, “What is a Cocktail Party?”

Party Swizzle, “How To Compile A Cocktail Party Music Playlist”

Finding the right members for your IPC

© Can Stock Photo / ajt

In “Basic ideas for recruiting members to your IPC,” I mentioned some ideas about finding and recruiting members, but didn’t explore the core of the matter, defining the qualities you’re looking for in potential members.

Open vs Closed Groups

If you're familiar with Meetup.com or some Facebook groups, you'll notice that you can either join immediately, or there is a small screening process before you can join. This is the elementary difference between open and closed groups. Open groups allow anyone to join, and closed groups makes an allowance for an organizer or moderator to ask the potential members questions before allowing them in.  Even with such a basic gateway for membership, you need some basic criteria to make a judgement. In one of the Facebook groups I moderate, we look to see if folks are 'real,' or they’re someone using Facebook to spam messages into our group. We look for things like locality, some posting history, or any other hook that tells us that this person is real. These are simple criteria put in place to mitigate an issue.

An IPC is a closed type of group. It goes much further in screening potential members than what I described above. An argument can be made that the clear majority of Meetup and Facebook groups are open, even if they screen potential members. This is to say the default screening processes are very limited and not thorough. To screen thoroughly, you need a well-developed concept of what you expect out of your membership.

Who is the ideal member for your IPC?

The first task you have in considering your membership is a checklist of broad traits folks need to have to get anything out of your IPC. The most important trait that should be on the top of the list is interest in IPC’s focus! From this point, take care to be reasonable about your expectations. You want to design your checklist in such a way as to identify folks who will be interested in the subject, be active with the group, and will get along with other members.  At the same time, you’re not looking for clones. What are the absolute requirements for joining the IPC? What are desirable traits?

Write a small paragraph about who you’re looking for as far as a member. An example for a Philatelist (stamp collector/historian) IPC might look like this:

“A member of the Atlantic Philatelist Club would be a stamp collector or somebody who has performed some work relating to philately, be it books, magazine or blog articles, or fine photography. Members must be able to attend at least half of the club’s meetings or functions, and be willing to share their knowledge of stamps with other club members.”

Pull out your membership criteria from the description. The starting checklist for a stamp collector’s 

IPC might look like this:

• Has at least one curated collection of stamps, properly stored. (Requirement)
• Can commit to attending six monthly meetings a year. (Requirement)
• Must be 21 years of age or older (Requirement)
• Can host at least one monthly meeting. (Desirable)
• Has a membership to a national philatelist society. (Desirable)
• Is willing to design and teach at least one workshop a year. (Desirable)

You can go deeper, but I would suggest not going more than ten criteria. Even then, if they conform to the required criteria, how many of the desired criteria do they need to hit to be considered for membership?  You should consider the goals of the IPC.

Don't expect perfection

Once you develop your checklist, you need to understand that very few people are going to meet every criterion you’ve established. However, you need to decide how many of the criteria is acceptable for membership, or what combination is acceptable. Of course, the requirements are the definite entry points, but you need to decide how many desirable criteria they need to adhere to be acceptable for membership. Do not expect anyone to be the ‘perfect fit.’ Look at this a goal to aspire to, rather than an absolute.

Live up to your own ideals

In creating membership criterion, you are required to live up to the standards that you’ve established. If you do not live up to the membership criteria you’ve established, both you and the IPC will lose credibility. Although you’re putting in the work – and good work it is – at the core of it, you’re another member. So be realistic with other folks.

When should you consider by-laws?

When you conceptualize your IPC, you’ll also want to think about establishing rules for membership. This means thinking through the kinds of members the IPC will attract, expected behavior, and how the IPC is to be managed. Doing this will give you the basis for creating by-laws. To be clear on what I mean, Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a by-law this way: “a rule adopted by an organization chiefly for the government of its members and the regulation of its affairs.” We’ll use this definition for this article, and any subsequent articles going forward. This post will discuss when you should begin capturing and codifying your by-laws.

© Can Stock Photo / valzan

I’ll start by saying this, let your IPC grow before formulating solid by-laws. You can think about what you’d like to suggest, but creating by-laws should be a group effort. Allow the group to grow, and then see what by-laws are needed. Considerable time can be wasted trying to anticipate how members are going to act, or how well the IPC's activities will conform to its focus. 

Never be a tyrant. Although you’re the one laying the foundations of the IPC, there will be a time where you’ll step down (I’ll also discuss this later), so the by-laws need to a product of the membership, equally binding to everyone. When you have grown enough to establish a steering board or board of directors, is when you need to start creating by-laws. This way, the membership is fairly represented when the by-laws are created, and amended in the future. Even if you and your membership do not form a steering committee or board of directors, you may want to eventually form a temporary committee to write the by-laws, and convene the committee every so often to amend them.

The only exception you may want to consider is when money becomes part of the business of running the group. Even when taking up donations, you may want to establish rules for how the money is to be spent and accounting. I always recommend complete transparency where money is concerned, and your by-laws should reflect this. Also, even if you feel you must establish by-laws for spending and accounting, you can revisit these rules and amend them to expand on other areas of club affairs when your IPC grows enough to support them.

A consideration at this point are Federal, State/Province and local laws regarding clubs, especially when your IPC begins to collect money. There might be laws regarding reporting intake, so it would be a sensible idea to know what those laws are. Even if you’re a small operation now, getting to know the law will benefit you when the IPC grows.

Approach your IPC by-laws thoughtfully, and encourage your membership in helping you formulate them. But first, give your IPC time to grow and develop its needs before you make any rule a firm written commitment.

The Charity and Accountability - more IPC focus areas

© Can Stock Photo / pressmaster

In my post "What should be the focus of my informal private club (or IPC)?," I define four basic focuses of an informal private club; Social, Professional, Field and Hobby. As a result my continuing research, I'll add a couple more focus areas, Charity and Accountability. Unlike the basic four, I would term the follow two a little bit more advanced because of what you need to consider in order to manage them.

Charity
This is an outstanding focus for an IPC, and done correctly, would be very popular. A charity IPC would take aspects of most of the basic IPC types, possibly adding field work or fund raising as activities within the IPC, along with discussions and socials that keep everyone interested and focused on the goals of the IPC's charity work. Charity could also be used as a 'plug-in' activity, like I've written about Salons, but to be truly effective, probably the best expression for charity work in an IPC is a free-standing group. It's probably advisable to associate with a larger association to establish or expand credibility.

If a charity focused IPC is going to do fund raising, it's going to take in money. This means accounting and bookkeeping. If you decide to take in money, everything needs to be absolutely correct, transparent, and in line with county, state/province and Federal laws. Do your homework ahead of time; research as much as possible and ask questions. This advice would be good for any IPC taking in money, either as membership dues or as simple donations. People rightly want to know where their cash is going. Also, it's always a good idea to be absolutely clear about where the money is going and keeping the books open for inspection by the membership. I'll discuss membership dues and money handling in later posts.

Accountability
I encountered the Accountability social organization in the Fast Company Magazine under the article "What You Need To Know To Create An Accountability Group That Works." Basically, an accountability group helps people stay focused on tasks they want to accomplish by reporting their progress to other folks. This is how businesses like Weight Watchers work. With WW, you join follow the plan and do a scheduled weigh-in, report your progress and receive encouragement to keep going. This would be a unique focus for an IPC, which can focus on anything that is task oriented. The Fast Company article threw out health, novel writing, professional uses as examples, but accountability can take many, many forms. Unlike other IPCs, you need to be very aware of the events and activities to present. You'd not want to have dinner parties if the goal of your IPC is help members stay fit and trim, unless the dinner party was about health food, or how to eat better.

An Accountability IPC would have some unique considerations, tact being foremost. Telling someone that they need to do better can be a difficult thing, if you want to empathetic also. You'll need to mentor people about how to be firm, but not rude or overbearing. Consider how the accountability will be handled in the design of your IPC.

Both of these IPCs speak to a higher purpose, and even though they would require some additional work, they could be most worthwhile IPCs you could create.

IPC Inspirations: Chappism

Gustav Temple, co-founder of CHAP Magazine

This will be first in a series of posts about inspirations for your informal private club. To start this off, it's fitting to begin with the concept that was the catalyst for the original IPC concept; Chappism (or 'chappist'). This is something I never heard or even conceived of until I seen this video posted on a website I regularly visit. After I saw this video, I had to follow it down the internet rabbit hole, and see where it led. Eventually, I found chappism.

Chappism is an interesting throwback to the dress and manners of the British town and county lifestyle, but with some modern embellishment. Much of it seems to be rather tongue-in-cheek in nature. Chappism, as I’m able to figure out, spans from Victorian to post-world war two inspirations. It even spawned a ‘chap-hop’ rivalry between two chappist -inspired entertainers, Professor Elemental and Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer. It's grown to be an alternative lifestyle for some folks, a consuming interest for others. It also has its own magazine, Chap. Chappism is an almost perfect fit for an IPC.

Two of the focus points of chappism is the dress and manners. Both lend to social interaction, preferably with others who share the same interest. It’s also a portable concept. If you’re not interested in chappism itself, but like the historical angle, you can go Great Gatsby or World War Two or post- World War Two America, or other timelines that had their unique styles. (for the love of Mike, don’t bring back the 80s!) From what I gather, it’s more an appreciation of the good that came out of those eras rather than a complete historical rehash. The downside of chappism, at least for the time being, is that it seems to have had it high tide some time ago. If you do any research in regards to chappism, bear in mind that some of the resources will be rather old in internet terms. 

Socials would be the core events for a chappist-type IPC, with discussions and workshops comprising other anchor events. An overall strategy could be to refine and improve everyone’s individual dress and manners. The strategy could eventually evolve into some community outreach, but that is something that the organizers and members of the IPC would need to figure out. A chappist IPC would allow a friendly space for that to happen. 

If like interesting dress and want to exercise your old-fashioned manners, take a look at chappism, or a derivative of it. If you love chappism, you might want to take a look at Dandyism!

Resources referring to Chappism

CHAP, "The Chap Manifesto"
CHAP, "Am I Chap?"
New Humanist, "Charm Offensive"
London Particulars, "Steady On, Chaps"
"Tweedland" The Gentleman's Club blog
Practical Chappism Facebook page (note: this hasn't been updated recently)

Creating a strategy for your IPC

© Can Stock Photo / ivelinradkov

It's not enough to simply create an IPC, but what do you want from it? This applies for any type of IPC defined in the 'What should be the focus of my informal private club (or IPC)?' post. For instance, if you've created a professional club, then what is the core mission? Is it to simply be a mixer for like-minded professionals, or is there something deeper to consider? A club should strive to elevate its membership in some way. Networking can be one way, but there's plenty of networking organizations out there. What more can your club do, or advocate? Is there a aspect of ethics you want to accentuate? This could lead to different types of events past socials, such as guest lectures or round tables.

Although I used a professional club as an example, most other club types can also dig deeper, be more focused and exclusive. Hobbyists can focus on a niche such as HO-scale trains rather than model trains in general, Rose gardening rather than flower gardening, and the same for any hobby. Social clubs can focus on food and drink, or an activity such as dancing (which can also port over to a hobby); clubs devoted to a field can narrow themselves down to a specific topic field. Studying the Civil War? You can go as specific as the war in the Appalachians. Studying the civil rights movement? Try looking at the issues per state. There's many ways to split the subject.

If you have a focus, then what is your club's overall strategy? How are you going to elevate your own members' awareness and knowledge, and by what means? What is the club going to offer past gatherings of folks? If you had a schedule, what would you plan to make the club a worthwhile investment of time for the membership and yourself? I suggest start thinking broadly, but narrowing your focus to find a comfortable niche. Also think in terms of 'offering', rather than terms of 'teaching.' What folks want to learn is up to them, and forcing a topic on them will cause some rebellion. Variety within the focus is good. You may look at asking for volunteers, and share the work. Also, I suggest living by the 'Stone soup' story, and have everyone contribute something.

By the end of the year, what opportunities will you have given your membership?

A Matter of Manners

A thought I had recently has stuck with me over the weekend about the core values of manners. It’s been something I’ve thought about the past few years, and I wanted to commit it to a post. It’s about respect and the other auxiliary things that surround it, such as manners, friendship, leadership to name a few. This especially important now, when respect for people seems to have bottomed out. Our discourse with our fellow citizens seems to be rougher than was in the past couple of decades, and we seem to take relationships for granted these days. How can we change this trend? How can we be better? How does this pertain to an IPC?

© Can Stock Photo / innovatedcaptures

Respect

I’ve read many articles about how social media has made things worse in the realm of public discourse. Folks can post anonymously, and be as rude, crass, and frankly loathsome as they want to be and not face the consequences. But is this the fault of social media, or is this a failing of our society, and social media is but the messenger? The one thing that I’ve observed is that the concept of respect for others is not often taught to children these days, and when these kids grow up, it becomes a foreign concept applied for all the wrong reasons. Now that we’ve elected controversial presidents, uncovered salacious Hollywood scandals, and seem to be solidly polarized as a culture in how we think and feel about many social topics, respect sounds like a dead notion. It’s been thrown out on to the rubble heap with once noble ideas of chivalry, patience and charity. I have a naive thought that if people knew the power of respect better, then we would be in better shape in these regards.

So, here we are. What can we do?

One way of looking at respect is seeing or even assuming the positive worth or quality of someone. This should relate along every plane of society, whether it be gender, race, religion, philosophy and politics, or what have you. If you give someone an equal footing in your dealings with them, at least at first, then you’re establishing a rapport that both of you can build on. After that, the relationship becomes a sliding scale of sorts. Depending on either one’s actions, the scale can move further along a positive path, or tumble toward negative territory. Both parties are responsible for how the scale moves. Sincerity and selfless action are two of many ways of moving the scale into positive territory. Having selfish or even abusive agendas are two sure ways of sliding into negative respect territory. Take a lesson from Harvey Weinstein. Selfishness, especially when it’s taken to an abusive level, catches up with you eventually.

When you’re running an IPC, the ability of giving people a measure of respect is a quality you want to encourage in yourself. You’ll meet folks of all sorts, and you want to give them a measure of respect, so they feel empowered to bring their unique perspective to your club. How they act will indicate whether of not they’re worthy. Respect goes both ways. It is a sliding scale.

Politeness

Politeness is often branded as an ‘old-fashioned’ trait, but it has an important function as a societal filter. If you go to YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, you can see the disastrous results when the ‘polite filter’ is turned off. People have the potential to get very nasty in expressing themselves, or in their opinions of others. Sometimes they hide behind a fake name and picture, other times they’re quite open.  I’ve heard both sides espouse doing this as empowering. But is it really empowering? I don’t think so. It’s tit for tat; it’s hiding behind a computer; it’s rudeness at it’s most basic. Is that you? Politeness and respect are tied together. Respect is the concept, politeness is the expression of the concept. Practice politeness. Get a copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette and read it, and then practice what pertains to you. Consider etiquette the functional part of politeness. 

Language

How we express ourselves through language affects our manners. I’m all for free speech, but how you speak reflects the person you really are. Although society seems to accept more alphabet -bombs or -words in everyday language, the fact is that it only reflects how inarticulate and lazy we’ve become. If you really want to make an impact, clean up what you say, and how you say it. Eliminate, or at least minimize, the crass words that have very little significance in daily language. Also, strive to increase your vocabulary. Replace the bad with the good. The more words in your arsenal, the better you can express yourself. This way, you can avoid getting into a donnybrook over how you said something.

Self-reflection

If you’re like me, it’s easy to see a lack of manners in other people, but we don’t see it in ourselves. Therefore, we don’t practice our manners as much as we ought to. Self-reflection is a powerful tool in course-correcting yourself. As a friend said to me about patience, “Every day gives me the chance to practice patience.” The same can be said of manners. But to measure your efforts, you need to think back on what you do. Aim to do little better every day, and think where you need to improve, or think of the areas where you may be backsliding. Keeping a journal is handy to track how well you’re doing.

Being an organizer of an IPC is to aspire for better for yourself and your members. There’s no better place to start than with manners. The world will be that more improved with your efforts.

Apologies for the semi-rant, but I think it's important, especially when you deal with people, I’ll be writing much more on this later.

Book Review: Saturday Salon: Bringing Conversation and Community Back Into Our Lives

If you want a comprehensive how-to on conducting a Salon, Saturday Salon is a great resource. Although written in 2010, it's still fresh for the most pat, and conveys everything you need to know about starting up a Salon. The author, Valerie Davisson, draws from her own experiences to give you everything you need to know about planning and executing a top-notch Salon experience. She also includes a chapter about pot-luck recipes, and a list of topics or as she labels the chapter, "The Topic Well" if you need further guidance on hosting your Salon. Saturday Salon's subject matter is well rounded and the book is an easy read.

Within the framework of an IPC, the information in this book is mostly relevant with some minor tweaking. Ms. Davisson seems to define her Salons as very informal affairs, almost with an air of a coffeehouse conversation group. Even so, Saturday Salon is an indispensable reference for planning your next Salon.

More resources:
You can find Saturday Salon: Bringing Conversation and Community Back Into Our Lives on Amazon.
Valerie Davisson also has a website, The Saturday Salon.

Our first Salon

My wife was the one that suggested us beginning our social endeavors with a Salon. Like most people, I didn’t have the slightest idea what a salon was except for the obvious thought that comes to mind. Yep, you got it. A hair salon. Once she explained it to me, I had a “oh!” moment. After a little digging, I got a better idea about the concept, and was a go for the social. We brainstormed a few ideas and approached to our salons, and we settled on an approach that suited our tastes and vision. The post is how we conceived the salon, how we set it up, and how we followed through with execution. It was hard work, but our first attempt at a social was a resounding success. This first try also gave us a baseline where we could improve on the following socials to improve our product, and get more out of the experience.

Concept

The concept that we decided to go with closely approached a cocktail party, but still had the basics of a salon. The concept revolved around a 'topic' or a focus for the night. Our thought was to start the first salons with a tangible item that would serve as the topic for each salon. We came up with something unusual and underrated at the same time, meads. If you're not familiar with meads, sometimes called 'honeywine,' this beverage is made from fermented wine rather than the grape, like more common wines. We narrowed the focus even more, and only featured those meads produced in our home state, North Carolina. We had a great time going out to the meaderies and collecting the meads and some knowledge of the topic, as well as doing some tastings.

We have a friends group that includes many mead aficionados, many of whom were great candidates for our initial IPC membership. We set the number of invitees between 8-12 folks (all well over 21). We also decided to mail out invitations to add a little more cachet to our first go at a social.

Setup

The setup was to feature six selections of North Carolina sourced mead for the topic. These ranged from a regular mead for a baseline taste, to flavored meads. We even had a mead that had what I would say had a savory taste. The outings to the meaderies also included researching mead and food combinations. Cheeses and meats seemed to the prevalent food companions to mead, so we had a good selection on hand, as well as some fruits such as grapes, apples and pears. To top it off, the table had a nice complementary floral arrangement.

Since this was a tasting, we had other foods that would help clean the palate, as well as plenty of water. As a note, if you do a tasting, always provide a dump bucket just in case a taste isn't up to someone's liking. Keep in mind this type of salon is to experience the topic and then discuss it. Tastes not to someone's liking are fair game for discussion, and the ability not go any further is sometimes a relief. As an ending for the tasting, we offered was coffee from Hawai'i and Earl Grey tea.

We also requested that everyone wear cocktail dress, but we didn't require it. We wanted to experiment with clothing and atmosphere. To be honest, we were also curious to see how people interpreted the request.

Execution

We had folks come in at 6:30pm (18:30); early enough to get settled. We were careful to make sure everyone was introduced. Some folks knew each other, others did not. Our first task was to get the small talk going a quickly as possible as a warm up. This also gave everyone time to arrive before the salon started. We settled everyone in our living room from the very beginning so everyone present could talk and get to know each other. When everyone who RSVPed was present, then we officially introduced the salon by reading a couple of poems that were related to mead. We were on the fence about the reading, but the poetry seems to get things moving, and it added an elegant touch.

Afterwards, we had folks move to the dining room, and starting the tasting and discussions. We went through the various meads, and then allowed folks to sample at will. The discussion was fairly focused on the topic, but soon branched off. We didn't try to moderate discussion, but let it take an organic path.

At the end of the night, we asked everyone to fill out cards and list the topics they wanted to see in the future. Most were variants on the tasting theme, but some creative souls wanted to do a salon related to fashion, and another related to music.

Wrap-Up
At the end of the night, we felt successful. The food was mostly consumed, as was the mead. People left the house with an air of excitement, and that's what we were looking for as a result of the salon. Our follow-up included tabulating the results of the topic lists, and asking the participants about future salons. Our goal is to have different folks hosting their topics.

We've also looked hard at improvements, but for the most part, these involve changes to arrangement and a rogue light fixture. More salons will provide us with more information on handling discussions and the salon as a whole.

Managing your informal private club

© Can Stock Photo / webking

With the good times comes the work behind the scenes. Once you've established your IPC, then you need to manage things on the other side. Create a member list, learn to plan ahead, and do the administrative tasks that ensure a smooth-running IPC. If this sounds daunting or busy, it really isn't. If you take steps to automate your tasks, then you can cut your busy time to a negligible level.

Member list
You'll want to maintain a list of your members, with emails and addresses. Even if you invite people through social media, I strongly suggest keeping a list of members with emails and street addresses. This way, you can send physical invites or thank yous using snail mail. Also, if you have a failure with your social media, you have a backup file to use. Additionally, you can track member attendance to events, if that is a concern for your club.

Planning ahead
Planning ahead is a habit you'll want to refine as your IPC grows and you diversify your club's offerings. You should plan your major events in the year, and smaller ones every three to six months. Avoid springing events on your members with less than three weeks notice. Some folks need time to add events to the calendar, and if you consistently create quick-turn around events, you'll risk turning off the members who cannot plan on short notice.

Consider using a free online calendar application like Google calendar. If you do this, I recommend keeping it completely separate from your private calendars.

Administrative tasks
These tasks include maintaining the club's calendar, communication with members, and setting up for events. Other tasks can include member surveys and maintaining the club's social media. Never make the job bigger than it really needs to be. If you can automate tasks, like with an electronic mailing list and templates, do so, but leave the creative aspects of the IPC for yourself.

I'll write about this in-depth at a later date, but what I've listed above are the very basics in administering your IPC.

Dress codes - when and how to apply them to your IPC

© Can Stock Photo / Nejron

Established private clubs are historically known for their strict adherence to dress codes. Even today, most clubs ask for something akin to khakis and polo shirts for men. These codes are meant to help convey a certain dignified and clean-cut atmosphere. The more high-brow the establishment, the more strict guidelines in place. Some of the most established clubs have jacket and tie policies at the very minimum.

What to do for an informal private club? Should you consider a dress code? If so how do you apply it?

An IPC is not an establishment, so dress codes more or less fall on the type of event you're hosting, and the atmosphere to you want to evoke. I advocate developing a base recommended dress guideline, much like an established private club, but make it 'suggested' rather than 'required.' This way, members know they aren't going to kicked out of an event if they don't dress the part, but they also know there is an expectation that they should dress better than t-shirts and flip-flops. Most people usually rise to the occasion. For your events that don't specify dress, the base guideline would cover it just fine.

The base dress guideline should be easy to conform to. An easy way create a base guideline is to create an exclusionary list of clothes that goes against your club's image. Overly casual clothes like t-shirts, baseball hats, and cargo shorts usually find their way on dress code "no-fly" lists for established clubs.  If you plan outdoor activities, then you may want to recommend clothing that is appropriate. For example, if you plan a hike in the summer, you may want to suggest hiking boots or trail shoes along with an athletic t-short and shorts.

Make sure your base clothing guidelines are accessable to all members. Also, if you plan to throw cocktail parties, salons and similar gatherings, you may want to develop a dress guideline for those, too. Like your base clothing guidelines, make sure those are communicated to your club members too. Avoid being overly perscriptive. Part of the fun is allowing people to be creative.

If you have a professional club, a well-defined dress code would be a good idea. Clothing is a form or communication, and in a professional setting, dressing the part is essential. Although a dress code in a social or field -oriented club would optional, I still recommend it, but with plenty of leeway. For a hobby -oriented club, call for dressing guidelines only under special circumstances.

More resources on dress codes:
The Art Institutes, "Defining Dress Codes – What to Wear for Every Occasion"
City Club Los Angeles, "Dress Code"