My IPC Journal - Statement of Intent for a new IPC

I've decided to do it. Since I've been writing about IPCs for nearly three months, it's high time for me to put words into action. I intend on designing and journaling a new IPC concept that I've had knocking in my brain for a while. My wife and I already have a social IPC that is growing (refer to "Our first Salon" for additional details), but we want to keep most of the details to ourselves since privacy is part of what we offer to the membership. The IPC I have in mind will be more open, and hopefully instructive to you. I'll discuss my approach, as well as any successes or failures I encounter.

As I mentioned in "The Beginning," my experience with group formation includes creating and organizing a local role play gaming group that now has around 1400 members. Also, I'm a huge fan of the writings of HP Lovecraft and related writers. My core concept is to create a local IPC of 'Lovecraftian' gamers and literary fans. There's a lot of possibility with this group, plus a sizable fan base to choose from.

Starting from the beginning, I need to figure out the following issues before my move to the next step of creating my new IPC:

• The basic reasons for creating my IPC in the first place (Refer to "Why create an informal private club?")
• Type of members I want to attract ("Finding the right members for your IPC")
• How I'm going to recruit those members ("Basic ideas for recruiting members to your IPC")
• The IPC's focus ("What should be the focus of my informal private club (or IPC)?")

Next week, I'll explain my rationale relating to each of these initial steps, and report on my progress. Also, I'll provide any amendments and additions to previous posts.

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.

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.

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)