Adding online activities to your IPC

The question of taking your IPC online with a chat, messaging, or web meeting application might come up at some point. While online activities might save time and effort, they’re not always the best solution for every activity. Bear in mind, most established clubs are based on social interaction. You go to personally meet people who you want to associate with. The club pre-screens people to make it easier for you to associate. Our fictional Atlantic Philatelist Club will make sure that all members have a certain amount of knowledge about stamps and postal history, while my HP Lovecraft literary and gaming club will insure that members are knowledgeable about Lovecraft’s works. This leads to the question, when is it appropriate for activities to be hosted online, like a chat, messaging, or web meeting application?

I’ve always looked at online activities as a filler of sorts, especially when your IPC is growing and developing more programming. Workshops and educational presentations come to mind, maybe as a follow-up to a live presentation. You can be very creative with what you put online, but I would caution that this shouldn’t eclipse your in-person activities. In-person activities are your IPC’s main purpose, which is to allow people to connect personally. This is very apparent with professional and social IPCs, where personal contact is the primary purpose. Other types of IPCs would benefit on various levels by keeping the membership engaged between in-person events. Also, committee meetings can be made easier by scheduling them online, or at least using them to fill-in in case members cannot meet in-person.

Whatever you decide, consider carefully how you’re going to integrate online activities in your IPC, or why you’re not considering them at all. Above all, using online connections should be looked on as a tool that benefits your IPC, but not as a crutch. Whether you deploy that tool is strictly up to you. My next post will cover what application to use, if you go this route.

Adding a Discussion Group to your IPC

This post will be a short one.  We've talked about Salons as a type of event. Salons usually follow an initial topic, but tend to be unstructured to allow conversation to flow freely. You're supposed to go off on tangents, or totally off topic. The talk is open-ended and organic.

A Discussion is almost the opposite. It is a focused and structured talk on a topic. You can use an agenda to guide the conversation, and the goal is greater understanding or create synergy (to coin an old Stephen Covey word form the early '90s). A Discussion group would fit most types of IPCs, except for maybe a social IPC. I've had great success hosting Discussion groups, and the flow of ideas and useful perspectives has always been fantastic. I would recommend that you do at least one quarterly. People love to talk, and you usually leave a discussion with something useful to think about or to act on.

If you plan to do a Discussion, be prepared. Announce the subject matter in advance and come with an agenda to keep the discussion focused. Also carefully moderate the discussion. Make sure everyone involved has had an opportunity to speak, so it would behoove you to play communication traffic cop. Make sure that the stronger personalities do not overwhelm the softer spoken folks (who often have the best insights, btw). Also, have fun!

Book review: The Club Woman's Handybook of Programs and Club Management

The Club Woman's Handybook of Programs and Club Management by Kate Louise Roberts is an broad compendium of useful information, but not exactly as the title suggests.

The Handybook was written in 1914 as a guide for women who wanted to create and manage local women's clubs. These clubs seemed to be very salon-like in how they operated, and the programs they offered. The book itself gives little practical how-to advice on how to run a club,  rather it's more a suggestion book and glossary of terms. The books is roughly divvied up into two parts, programs and parliamentary procedure. The programming portion throws out ideas for the club to discuss. These topics range from domestic affairs to history to current affairs to feminism.  The goal of the club was to elevate women's awareness. If the programming section is any indication, they were positively ambitious. I speculate an ulterior motive for the clubs and the book were created to prepare women for the suffrage movements that had been gaining traction at the time.

In our more modern times, and in the context of the IPC, the Handybook has become another kind of resource. While most of the club information the book is dated or very basic, the programs portion of the book gives you loads of  ideas for salons, and points to even different types of IPCs that you can choose to develop. The subject matter is still relevant in many instances, although I will give a word of warning that it tens to touch lightly on certain now controversial topics like eugenics. Otherwise, the Club Woman's Handybook is a worthy resource for IPC managers.

Setting up the programming for your IPC

Once you have your IPC up and running with a handful of events planned and completed, you’ll want to put more meaning or organization behind what the IPC is offering its members. If you’re wanting to be creative, coming up with the club’s event offerings is one of the most creative opportunities you can enjoy. This is also an opportunity to steer the IPC in a meaningful direction. As with any club activity or action, creating the club’s programming should be performed by the club’s steering committee. If the club is large enough to support it, a separate Activity or Programs committee could also be created to handle creating and managing club programming.

If you’re the only one creating the programming, you’ll need to have a calendar on hand. At this point I’ll tell you not to over-commit yourself. If you don’t have assistance, you need to figure out how much you can do and still have a quality product. If you want to expand your offerings, you’ll need to ask for help. As a note, never ‘volun-tell’ people what to do. This is a sure way of turning off your members, and killing your credibility. Instead, tell people about what you’d like to plan and talk it up. Always be open to feedback. Also, empathize that they have a stake in this and you’d like their ideas. With any luck, you may find your IPC’s future steering committee!

Your programming should fit in with your club’s strategy (refer to the “Creating a strategy for your IPC’ post). The events need to be designed to accomplish the club’s overall strategic goals. Creative use of events can be designed to help with this. Also, realize that some events we’ve covered so far in this blog may not be appropriate for your IPC. While a supper club would be great for social or professional IPCs, it’s probably not appropriate for a hobby or certain accountability IPCs. If you’re at a loss, casual meets are always good starting events. Even then, you’ll need to begin formulating events that propel your IPC in the desired direction.

As an example, let’s say you’ve just formed the Midtown Coders Bloc IPC. Your club’s strategy is to network local professional programmers, and to keep folks up-to-date with trends in the industry. You can establish a monthly casual meet to allow your members to just mingle and talk, and speaks to your networking strategy. Also, a member knows someone that is a jobs recruiter, and they’re willing to give a bi-monthly talk about local programming opportunities in exchange for a chance to meet and speak with IPC members. Another member loves hands-on programming, and is more than willing to host a quarterly discussion (we’ll talk about this add-on later) on certain programming topics. Both the recruiter and programming lover speak to the trends portion of your IPC strategy. This serves as your basic IPC programming. From there, the sky is the limit, if you have enough energy and volunteers to go around.

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.

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”

Salon Variant: the literary reading

Earlier, I discussed adding a Salon to your IPC as a type of social event. The type of Salon I described has a topic to focus the conversation for the social. As I was poking around the internet, I happened on an article in Flavorwire about Salons entitled "Visit Some of History’s Most Famous Literary Salons." A couple of the featured salons were literary readings. This would still work in a modern sense. The topic would be replaced by the reading for the event. I imagine poems would be well suited to this, as well as short stories. The sky is the limit, and something unique worth trying.

I'm putting this on my to-dos list for my club in 2018.

More resources for literary salons:
The Guardian, "Louis de Bernières and other British writers revive the literary salon"
Bust Magazine, "Host A Modern-Day Literary Salon"
The New York Times, "An Attempted Comeback for the Literary Salon"

Effective introductions

© Can Stock Photo / EastWestImaging

A good introduction is one of the most powerful tools in a conversation. It conveys a wealth of information about someone in a short span. It gives a sort of permission that is sometimes needed to approach someone. It dispels awkwardness, and ultimately, can be the difference between a steadfast member of your IPC, and someone you never see again. Above all, it's the polite thing to do.

Introductions make everyone accessible, especially if there is a preponderance of club regulars in your event or social meeting. Without introductions, new people are left to either sink or swim amid unfamiliar personalities. This is never a good feeling. Extroverted folks can usually make their own introductions and inject themselves into conversations, but even this tends to be awkward and time consuming at first. A well delivered introduction quickly breaks the ice for new people, gives everybody perspective about each other and allows everyone hooks for conversation.

A well delivered introduction

A good introduction should contain these elements:

• Some knowledge of everyone involved. Talk to your club leadership to find out some information about everyone. If you’re a club leader, you should have some working knowledge of folks in your IPC.
• Eye contact, and open and relaxed body language. Eye contact is essential to communication, and welcoming body language puts everyone at ease.
• Names of all involved. Use names that preferred over proper names. For example, if Thomas prefers 'Tom,' then use Tom.  Also, know everyone’s preferred pronouns, if there are non-binary gender folks in the social. I’ll talk more about this later.
• Personal conversation hooks that everyone can relate to. If you cannot find relatable hooks, then throw out some interesting tidbits about the people you’re introducing, but never get too personal. Some good hooks might involve professional or hobby interests, or home state, region or country. Actively avoid using politics, religion, age and health as hooks.

If you’re introducing new folks, be sure to also make a good impression as a host. Lapses in manners on your part can unintentionally stick to the people whom you’re introducing. Be polite, and if you’re introducing new people to regulars having a conversation, make sure to time your entrance at an unobtrusive moment. If the occasion warrants, introduce by professional rank. For example, if someone in the conversation circle is a company president, or firm principal, then they should be introduced first, and then in order if possible.

If you have  members that identify as gender neutral or non-binary, then ask for their preferred pronoun and use it in your introduction as a way of communicating this preference to other club members. For example, John Doe is non-binary and prefers that folks use them, they, their as pronouns. As a host, you can introduce John in this way, “I would like to introduce John. They're very excited to meet you…” If John is with someone who identifies as a binary gender, then you can say “I would like to introduce John and their partner, Jane.”

A well delivered introduction should result in allowing unfamiliar people to be more approachable and ready to converse at your social event. After the introduction is made, it’s up to the new folks to stand on their own feet, conversationally.

Resources for making introductions

Personality Tutor.com, “How To Introduce People”  

Verywell, “How to Introduce People”  

CIO, “Social Networking Etiquette: How to Introduce Yourselfand Others Politely” 

Storyline, “A Better Way to Introduce Your Friends at Parties” 

Adding a Salon to your IPC

© Can Stock Photo / DGLimages

A salon? Well, maybe not a hair salon, but something immensely more interesting. The salon we’re talking about is defined in Wikipedia as “a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation.”. (refer to Wikipedia for Salon (gathering)).  This type of event is well suited to an IPC, and requires some set up to carry off successfully. 

In IPC parlance, a salon can be a cocktail party with focused conversation, or just a focused conversation.  Salons are best suited to the social, professional and field -type IPCs (Refer to blog entry here), but not so much to a hobby type IPC. You can also choose to host a salon that is closer to the historical salon, but be warned that will take more time and diligence on your part to set-up and execute.

If you choose to host a salon, it should have a topic for the evening. You should have a main space for the topic conversation, and a host who can talk in depth about the topic. In my experience, it’s best to allow conversation to flow from there to other subjects, if appropriate to the evening’s overall topic. If conversation lags or wanders off course, then the host can interject with the evening’s topic and restart the conversation. The aim of the salon is to educate and refine the participant’s knowledge of the featured topic.

Add a little pizazz to your IPC with a salon!

Articles about Salons:

Edge, "Salon Culture: Network of Ideas" 

Benet Davetian, "The History and Meaning of Salons" 

Four Seasons Magazine, "Trending Now: Modern Salons from London to Dubai"  

Elephant Journal, "How to Host a 21st Century Salon" 

7X7, "Salon Gatherings Make a Comeback"

GOOD, "Talk of the Town: How to Host a Successful Salon"

Adding a Supper Club to your IPC

© Can Stock Photo / DGLimages

If you want to add a foodie component to your informal private club (we'll call it IPC for now), a ‘supper club’ is a wonderful idea. Your club members who regard cooking as a hobby are well-suited to run foodie events for your IPC. As with stand-alone supper clubs, you'll probably want to develop a menu, ask members about any allergies and preferences, and collect donations to defray costs. You'll also want to keep the size of the event intimate, so you can be sure to fit everyone comfortably and ensure a great experience. Quality over quantity should be the over-riding rule here, not only in the number of diners, but also with the quality of ingredients.

Below are interesting articles I found on the Supper Club/Underground Restaurant phenomenon. As ideas, they can be easily incorporated into your IPC as a regular event. Bear in mind though, these articles showcase stand-alone establishments or clubs that operate almost like restaurants, and often on fringes of local laws and regulations.

Wikipedia Articles

Supper Clubs 

Underground Restaurants 

Articles on Supper Clubs:

The Guardian, "The Secret Feast" 

HipLatina, "Hosting a Pop-Up Dinner AKA Supper Club in Your City"

Flavorwire, "The Rise of the Pop-Up Restaurant and Supper Club" 

Delish, "Secret Dining Societies: Where to Find Underground Restaurants" 

St. Louis Magazine, "Ask George: How Do I Find Out About Underground Restaurants in St. Louis?" 

Articles for inspiration:

Supper Clubs in Washington DC

dcist, "A Guide to Supper Clubs, Pop-Ups And Private Dining in D.C" 

Supper Clubs in NYC

Thrillist, "The 6 NYC Supper Clubs You Need Join (And How To Do It)"

Supper Clubs in Chicago

Thrillist, "The 6 Secretest Supper Clubs In Chicago"

Supper clubs in London

TimeOut London, "London's 'underground' restaurants"