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 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"