Banish the Book Club Hosting Blues

January 4, 2010

Book clubs are one of the more popular and ubiquitous hobby clubs.  Book club meetings are generally held at venues such as libraries, restaurants and people’s homes.

Every club has their own favorite way of doing things, but many people feel that having the meeting in someone’s home is the most comfortable.  My own book club rotates the location to a different member’s home every month, which gives everyone a chance to be the host.

However, not everyone likes being the host.  For some of us, the idea of it may even keep us from being a part of the book club altogether.

If this sounds like you, please keep reading.  Being the host is not as scary as it sounds.  Here are some ways to keep you from shaking in your house-slippers when the dreaded day draws near…

1.  Cleanup. Let’s say you’re not the neatest person in the world.  The solution to this is for you to just clean up the main room you’ll be sitting in, plus the kitchen and the bathroom.  The rest of the house can stay messy.  If you’re afraid someone will ask for a tour, you can politely refuse and tell them you didn’t have time to clean the rest of the house.

2.  Seating. Generally the living room will be the most comfortable.  If it’s nice out you can hold the meeting outside in a porch or on a patio — just make sure it’s shaded.  As long as there’s a comfortable place for everyone to sit and a few small tables to put food and drinks on, pretty much any place works.

3. Food. No need to spend all day in the kitchen.  Generally everyone is expected to bring something, so the host should be responsible for one main dish, and the beverages (see next bullet).  The Internet is full of recipes for easy and delicious dishes.  Hummus and pita with fresh vegetables is always a hit in my club! And it takes only minutes to prepare.

4.  Drinks. If your group prefers a beverage that you don’t normally drink there is no need to go overboard.  If the group drinks coffee for example, you don’t need to spend $30 on a pound of gourmet beans and a brand new grinder.  Just go to your local indie coffee shop and buy only as much as you need, and have them grind it for you.  Be creative, ask around.  (On the other hand, don’t skimp either.)

That’s it!  A clean, comfortable place for the group to sit, some nice healthy snacks, and something to drink.  The rest of the club meeting will pretty much take care of itself.

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1 Comment | Groups, Hobbies, event planning | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lisa Pecunia

Size Does Matter

November 2, 2009

Being the host of an event can be a challenging task if you’re not a natural born organizer.  But it’s not impossible, and can even be fun.  Just don’t let the details overwhelm you.

One simple way to assure the success of your event is to keep the size of the group manageable.

In this post, I’m specifically referring to those events where you’re just out to have a good time and meet some people.  A walk in the woods, a trip to the movies, a bike ride to the beach for a picnic, taking the kids to the town pool, or a book club meeting.  Even small business events can fall into this category.

The optimal size of the group will fluctuate based in circumstances, but generally a good number to shoot for is between six and ten.

Four is OK. Twelve is OK. Eight is generally perfect.

Notice how these numbers are all even?  Even numbers are best because it makes it easy for people to naturally form pairs and have conversations.

Some reasons for keeping the group small:

  • As the host, you want to have a chance to speak with each person at least once during the time the group is together.
  • It is easier to make sure the group is intact with one glance, especially if you are in an unfamiliar place, and are moving around.  Most people can SEE six to eight people, whereas more than that requires an actual physical count.
  • A quick scan of the crowd will tell you if everyone seems to be comfortably enjoying themselves.
  • Most people feel more comfortable in smaller, more intimate group settings.

There are a few other factors to consider when planning an event for a specific number of people:

Invite more people than you want to attend. When planning a casual event, you will have no-shows and people who cancel at the last minute, so it is a good idea to plan for more people than you expect. If you want eight, plan for at least 14.  After you hold a few events with your group, you will get a feel for how many end up not coming.

If you have collected a payment in advance you will have a lot fewer (if any) no shows.  If the event is free, you will have a lot more.

If your event is outdoors, less than ideal weather will always keep some people away.  I had a hike once where 26 people said they were coming and only six showed up.  The no-shows mostly blamed the weather forecast, which was predicting some showers later that day.  (Incidentally, we didn’t get a drop of rain during the hike.)

Friends count differently than strangers. If your group is mostly comprised of people who know each other well, you can manage a larger group.  Since they know each other, they will mostly take care of themselves.

If your group will be mostly strangers, they will need some time with each other to get comfortable.  As far as they all know, the only thing they have in common is their interest in the activity for which they came to this event.  In this case smaller is better.  Give people a chance to spend time feeling each other out for other commonalities.

Professional events can support a larger group size. If your event is, say, a meet and greet for local businesses, your optimal number can be much higher than that of a personal or recreational-type of event.  Business people are naturally more outgoing in crowds, because they are there to talk about their business, not themselves.

A group size of 20-25 is manageable for this setting.  Once you have done these a few times and feel comfortable, you can try for 30 or more people if your venue can handle it.

Let your experience guide you. These are only guidelines.  If you are just starting out, start small and be conservative.  The first event for your group can be a nail-biter, but each one gets easier.

Don’t be afraid to cancel your event. If you’ve planned a trip to the beach and the weather forecast is calling for thunderstorms, trust me, nobody will show up.  Just cancel it.

You can also cancel it if you aren’t seeing a lot of interest.  If you’ve invited 16 people to a World of Warcraft party and only two say they’re coming, you might end up with a disappointing party.  Save yourself the aggravation, and try again another time with a different kind of event.  It might be that the folks in your group just don’t go for that topic.

If you’re interested in the slightly broader topic of how many friends a person can have at once, take a look at this interesting post by Seth Godin about Dunbar’s Number.

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Do you enjoy reading these posts? Why not sign-up to receive Grouvia’s e-newsletter? You’ll get the latest news delivered to your inbox and you can participate in the Grouvia development process. It’s free. Sign up at www.grouvia.com.

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Posted by Lisa Pecunia

Everyone You Know Belongs to This Group

September 28, 2009

Close your eyes for 10 seconds and try to think of all the different kinds of groups you belong to.

You should be able to think of somewhere between three and 10 different groups:  Church, school, work, friends, neighborhood, sports team, hobby club, health club, bowling league, and on and on.  Within each of these groups are numerous smaller subgroups, some of which you may also belong to.

Life is a big web of overlapping and interconnected circles of people who are joined by common interests or purpose.

Even though we might not consider it a group, there is one group everyone belongs to: Your family.

For most people this conjures up images of Mom, Dad, sister, brother, son, daughter, Grandma, Grandpa, and so on.  Some cultures are traditionally very close with a larger circle of extended family as well – aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew and possibly beyond.

Many people don’t have what one might consider a traditional family (and the definition of family has extended considerably over the years), but there might be some group of people who “serve as” the family.  Perhaps a foster family or even an orphanage.

The family is the most common type of group and it has basically the same structure and rules of any other kind of group, whether those rules are spoken or unspoken.  There is usually a leader and second-in-command.  Each member has a role of sorts, and usually some set of responsibilities.

While a family doesn’t have the formal structure of an organized group, it does most things in group-like fashion, such as…

  • Communicates both individually and as a group
  • Attends events together… Sunday dinner at Grandma’s, Saturday at the beach, Little Eddie’s baseball game, church services, family weddings, a school play, etc.
  • Shares pictures of its members and occasions with friends and other family.

Every family is different it’s true. But so is every group, whether it’s a family unit or your church choir or the entire class of 1994 at Georgetown University.

All kinds of groups can use Grouvia.

Since all groups follow the same basic tenets, Grouvia was designed to support the basic format of any kind of group, including families.  Your family group on Grouvia can be public or private, or you can customize your group to be public in certain ways and private in others.  Your Grouvia group can contain just your immediate family or, even better, your extended family.

For more information about how Grouvia can help your family communicate, have fun together, and share your life with others, visit grouvia.com/families.

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Do you enjoy reading these posts? Why not sign-up to receive Grouvia’s e-newsletter? You’ll get the latest news delivered to your inbox and you can participate in the Grouvia development process. It’s free.  Sign up at http://grouvia.com.

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Posted by Lisa Pecunia

How to Prevent No-Shows at Your Events

September 14, 2009

I recently went hiking with a local hiking group. (Disclaimer, I joined using Meetup.com.)  The organizer had set a maximum of 30 people, which is actually quite a large group for a hike.  I suspect he thought some portion would not show and he would have a manageable size of 20-25.

This particular hiking group has a large membership base and not enough active organizers to create a lot of hikes, so there’s usually a waiting list. The event I registered for had more than 30 people on the waiting list. 20 of the 30 expected attendees didn’t show up, which miffed the organizer and rightfully so.  30 people who wanted to come were not able to because somebody took a spot then didn’t bother to change their RSVP.

It is not possible that two-thirds of the hiking group had to attend to a sudden urgent matter the morning of the hike.  On the other hand, I can’t believe that all those people thought, “Well, I just don’t feel like going but can’t be bothered to change my RSVP, even though I know someone’s waiting for my slot.”  People just aren’t that blatantly uncaring.  Well, most people aren’t anyway.

So what is going on here?

My opinion is that sometimes people just don’t think.  They don’t pay attention to details. They forget things. They’re over-committed and unorganized and have too many things vying for their attention. This is human nature and it is especially true these days.  Life is crazy and people are busy — everyone talks about it.

As a group organizer, knowing this is half the battle.  What you should NOT do is berate or punish or otherwise make people feel guilty or uncomfortable about what they’ve done, after the fact.  They are not children and these tactics won’t work, and they may even backfire.  My experiences with both children and adults have confirmed this repeatedly.

So what is the solution?  There’s no one single answer, but here are a few things you can do:

  1. Charge for your event and ask people to pay in advance.  This can be a small amount, maybe $5 (or $10 if you live in New York).  This is a small enough amount that people won’t mind paying, but it also has the effect of creating an additional level of commitment for the attendee.  PayPal makes it very easy to do this.  Of course there is a little more work involved, but people are a lot more likely to show up.  Also, make it clear that there are no refunds for no-shows.  You can use the money to buy food and/or drinks or donate it to a worthy cause.  Be upfront about what you are using the money for.  You could even hold a 50/50 raffle of all the attendees and give half of it back.
  2. Assume that a certain percentage of people just won’t show.  You can use an average based on past events, if you have this kind of data.  When I ran my old hiking group in Connecticut the average was between 50-70% attendance (it was higher on nice days.)  So after I figured this out, I always set the attendance limit at 50% above my desired group size.
  3. Make it part of your rules that you will keep track of no-shows and after the second time, the person goes on probation for a certain period.  Basically this just means they aren’t allowed to attend limited-attendance functions.  You can even go so far as saying if they do it again, they are out of the group.  Yes, this is a type of punishment, but the key difference is that this is part of your club’s rules and everybody knows this in advance.  Make sure you explain why this is part of your rules – it assures everyone in the group enjoys themselves.  It’s important to do this in a nice way and for the right reasons.
  4. Give people every opportunity to do the right thing.  Send them reminders.  Maybe even create a final confirmation process where people must confirm their attendance 24 hours before the event, and if they don’t you can assume they aren’t coming. This is also fairly easy to do with an email autoresponder.
  5. In addition to the 24-hour confirmation deadline, you might also use this deadline to remove all “Maybe” responses from the attendee list and let people on the waiting list assume those spots.  If a person is still not sure 24 hours before the event, chances are they’re not coming.  Or you could not allow Maybe responses at all.  Again, make it clear in the beginning that this is the way it works for your group’s events.
  6. I know it’s hard to believe but not everybody checks their email constantly.  So how about sending reminders to people’s cell phones?  You could require that people provide their cell phone number as part of joining the group so you can send event reminders to their phone with a short text message.  This is as easy as sending an email message, since all cell phone service providers offer an email address format that sends a text message to a cell phone.  You just have to keep it under the 160 character SMS limit, which is easier than it sounds.  (Twitter allows 140.)
  7. Don’t limit the attendance, unless you have a physical reason to do so (like you’re hosting a board-game party and your living room is the size of a closet).  The caveat here is that you need to have people you trust willing to jump in and help organize a too-large group.  For most outdoor events, it’s easy enough to break the group into manageable sub-groups, and you can even do this so each group shares specific qualities.  Hiking or running groups can be split up by fitness level, age group, people with or without dogs, etc.
  8. Finally, give everyone multiple ways to reach you.  People get lost even with the most detailed directions.  By making it easier to reach you, you take away the excuse that they couldn’t and don’t show up.

Different things will work for different types of clubs.  Try some of the ideas you think might work for your group, and choose the best one, or perhaps some combination, after some trial and error.

The most important thing is to make your group’s events a positive experiences for everyone, including yourself!

Lisa

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Do you enjoy reading these posts? Why not sign-up to receive Grouvia’s e-newsletter? You’ll get the latest news delivered to your inbox and you can participate in the Grouvia development process. It’s free.  Sign up at http://grouvia.com.

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Posted by Lisa Pecunia

Three Simple Rules for a Successful Small Group Event

July 18, 2009

Organizing and executing a successful group outing is not difficult.  Yes, it takes time but if you follow a few simple rules you will have a good event plan in place with a minimum of fuss.

Simple Rule Number One:  PEOPLE CAN’T READ YOUR MIND

You must be explicit about what you expect your attendees to do.  Tell them exactly where to meet you, what you look like (or what sign you’ll be standing under or whatever), what day, what date, and what time.  If it’s a meet and leave, tell them what time to be there and what time the group is leaving.  Give them your cell phone number to call you if they have a problem finding the location.  Tell them what to bring and what to wear.  Tell them if there’s a cost involved and when it’s due and how to pay it.

Simple Rule Number Two:  PEOPLE FORGET, SO REMIND THEM

If you have to change the plan, even a little bit, tell the group.  Also, remind them about the event, remind them about your cell number, tell them to call you if they have questions.  Send them directions, even GPS coordinates.  Remind them a week in advance and then again a couple of days in advance.  Tell them how excited you are about the event, and that you’re looking forward to meeting them.

Simple Rule Number Three:  REWARD YOUR ATTENDEES

Show up to your event in advance — try to be the first one there.  Welcome people as they arrive, introduce yourself, thank them for coming.  Be social, have a good time, mingle, and try to talk to everyone if possible.  Ask people if they are having fun.  Take pictures of groups of people talking, laughing, smiling.  After the event send them all a thank you email and tell them you are looking forward to seeing them at the next event.  Post your pictures within a few days, and send everyone a link.

Good events are what will keep people coming back.  They will also start bringing their friends, and soon enough, people will start hearing about your group and how great it is to be a member.  Whether it’s a social event or a professional meeting or a charitable cause, a positive experience is the best measure of success.

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Posted by Lisa Pecunia