How To Start a Club (Members Only Jackets Optional)

When you live in an apartment community in northwest Iowa or southeast South Dakota, chances are you’ve had plenty of time to meet your neighbors in the building. And there is an even greater chance your neighbors are becoming friends. At some point you may have even thought about taking it to the next level—forming a social club that meets together and eats together for a common purpose.

Social clubs are everywhere, and they are as easy to form as they are to join and participate in. Whether you are forming a card club, a book club, a progressive dinner club, a sewing circle, etc., the point is to gather like-minded souls together for a fun evening on a regular basis. Here’s how to start a club of your own.

Decide what sort of club you’d like to form.

This is the hardest step, so it’s best to get it out of the way. Think about what you’d like to focus each gathering on, how often you’d like to meet, who should be invited, and how the hosting will rotate. You may find that it’s easier to pick one day of the week that most of the invitees can make; this way if they can’t make one meeting, they can always pick it up quickly the next time. If you’d like to make the event monthly, try to stick with a regular schedule, like the second Tuesday of the month, so that people can plan months in advance.

Start inviting.

It’s easy to personally invite people you know who may have an interest in your club, but it’s perfectly okay—more fun, even—to open it up to newcomers. In fact, some clubs are successful because they make a point to always include a fresh face. You never know what connections may form when you share a common interest! Keep in mind your limitations, however; if you are a card club, you’ll need to keep even numbers and the number of members relatively small—unless you have a huge space that can accommodate a large number of players.

Get it rolling.

Many clubs form as a result of one successful gathering, whether it was due to the chemistry of the people in the room or the subject matter being presented. The important thing is to pick a date and get it started. Set rough guidelines for all members, for instance, in a book club, the person who is the next host picks the reading material, or, in a wine club, the person who hosts provides the snacks and the theme. The point is to make it fun and to share the responsibility evenly amongst the members so that everyone can engage and enjoy equally.

Take it up a notch, if you want.

Maybe you are a Nebraska sewing club that wants to make fun t-shirts that promote your group and the friendships you are stitching together. Maybe you want to grow your adult soccer league in South Dakota to include teams from neighboring towns. Maybe you want your book club to start writing a few pages of its own. Whatever your interests or goals, it’s sometimes fun to see where your club could go if it was really allowed to flourish. Encourage members to brainstorm ways the group could grow and improve.

Are you part of any social or networking clubs? What social gatherings add fun to your life?

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