Learn how to start your own social club to meet new friends. This example explains how to start a sketching club for artists, but could be applied to other types of clubs as well (such as reading groups, knitting groups, or whatever you happen to like)
1.Have a hobby or theme ready. If drawing is your thing and you want to meet more artists, that works great, but maybe there is something else you would love to try such as making knit tags or staging weird 'happenings' around your city.
2.Most clubs start really small, with a core group of friends. Do you have a couple of friends who share your interest? Suggest a time and place to hang out and do your thing (whether it's sketching, or talking about a book, or whatever.
3.Assuming you all had fun, set up another time to meet up and do the same thing. Try to make the next meeting a week from then, and suggest that your friends invite others to join.
4.If you haven't done so already, start up an account at a social networking site such as Friendster or MySpace, Twitter or Facebook. Find new people and introduce yourself to them. Tell them about the club and invite them to it.
5.If you want to expand your club even further, consider starting up a group BBS system, posting an ad on Craigslist, putting up fliers, and going to clubs with a similar theme to 'scalp' people into joining your group.
* Assuming the club is getting a decent amount of people showing up, be sure to tell that to people who you invite (i.e. say 'last time we had a really nice turnout, we took over the whole top floor of X coffeehouse') People are intrigued by things that are popular.
* When it comes to clubs, some will come and some will go, so it's important to keep meeting new people to invite. Assuming your club isn't bad you will get a few people who will stick, and start inviting their friends, and so on and so forth. Striking a balanced between structure and creative freedom in the group is key: too many rules and people won't participate, too few, and they think they don't have to show up.
* The social tone of the club should depend on your overall goals. If you want to meet a wide variety of people and increase numbers, be sure to be friendly and helpful to novices in the area of interest. If you want the opposite effect, set a tone of exclusivity and make people jump through hoops to join.
* Sell some food to members to make a bit more money for the club!
* Coffee shops make awesome meeting places.
*Keep it light and casual. Don't bring any gavel to bang and announce the beginning of the meeting. When inviting people, tell them that the people who already go are a really fun group and encourage them to bring their own friends as well.
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