Anime club help?

Brand

So, I was at the Zenkaikon panel about anime clubs a few weeks ago, which got the gears running in my head for the club I help out. It is a local club that isn't associated with anything. Also, by Rym's standards we are really not a club anymore, about 7-10 people show up. So, we would like to make some changes and get some more members. One of the changes that we have wanted for a while is to move out of the comic book store basement we are in. Not only do we want to get away from "basement" stigma but we are just getting pushed out by all the stuff down there.

I found a local library (one actually on a few blocks from my house) has a room we can use for free. Which would be great but it needs us to have some kind of insurance. The librarian wasn't to helpful in explaining it or what I had to do. He told me to call my insurance company and they would help me. I called a local insurance broker yesterday but I just run around on the phone because no one is sure what I am asking for.

The paper work the librarian gave me states "provide the STLA with a Certificate of Insurance naming the STLA and the Township of Spring as additional insureds" but now I am at kind of a loss of what to do for this.

Any suggestions or advice is really welcomed. Thank you.

Neito

Coming in completely ignorant of anything other than what you've told me, that sounds kinda like a way of saying "We don't want you here, but I'm not allowed to turn away any group, so I'll throw insane restrictions in your way to stop this".

Rym

This sort of thing has ended many tabletop gaming meetups.

That kind of insurance is only really issued to companies or charitable organizations: not individuals...

Brand

That is really disappointing to hear. This would have be a really great spot. I guess I need to keep looking but there doesn't seem to be a lot of great places around that we can afford.

Rym

There's a reason we said community clubs are the hardest to run unfortunately.

Some venues will cover liability for you. Most either exclude hosted events from their coverage (lowering their premiums, but making it a huge liability if anyone gets hurt on their property subject to the exclusions) or just won't let anyone use their space except bona fide companies/charities (and usually church groups...).

NerdNYC had to stop allowing minors into their events for similar insurance/venue-related reasons.

Brand

I've been looking for places over the past year, but finding anything we can afford is really hard. We used to have more members when we meet at a place called the Goggleworks but it turns out the former club president was paying a couple hundred each time to use the place (which is crazy). So when he left no one had the money to keep that up (and if he had told us we would have told him to stop).

We don't really want to move into someone's house (I especially don't want that because it would likely be my house).

I guess we could look into getting non-profit status again. I can't remember what stopped us last time, though.

Neito

See if you can partner with a local community college. They're sometimes pretty generous about use of their space.

Coldguy

Neito said:

See if you can partner with a local community college. They're sometimes pretty generous about use of their space.

MATATAT

How is 7-10 people not a club?

Rym

MATATAT said:

How is 7-10 people not a club?

That's friends hanging out.

We basically say in our regular "How to run an anime club" lecture that unless you're pushing 20 members and meeting in a venue that isn't someone's house, you're not really a club in any meaningful way. It's not something that's likely to survive you, and there's no point in bothering with any of our advice.

Our advice really only applies to clubs large enough to do things like collect dues, have a budget, incorporate, officially rep with another organization, run a con, or else grow to one of these things. Formal governance.

7 people hanging out and watching anime does not need a "constitution" or "executive board."

Coldguy

Ever think about shooting that Panel as a video for the internet? I think there is enough of a passive interest that would watch it.

Cremlian

But there is still a lot of advise to try and grow your population but what I know from community clubs is you get a lot of people who come once and never again. It's hard to build the a constant base up.

Rym

The "come once" phenomenon is caused almost always by that guy being at the club.

Brand

We had about 20ish people at one point. For some they made friends in the area and they got what they wanted out of the club and stopped coming. For some it is matter of just not having time anymore.

So, in some ways we did accomplish our goal of nerd socialization but it also worked against us?

We do have a lot of come once and never again. I do think some of it is the venue. The comic book store basement we meet in used to be pretty nice but over the last few years we are just getting pushed out by junk. So, a new place to meet has been in the list for a while. But everything has been out of our budget. Currently we pay $20 each time we have a meeting at the comic book store.

We also have like 3 derps who show up who are those guys. But other then the dude who tries to hugs all the females (I'm having the club president talk to him) they haven't done anything wrong (other than be annoying) and I'm sure how to deal with them.

The last person who was new to start regularly showing up is a friend of mine.

Rym

Brand said:

For some they made friends in the area and they got what they wanted out of the club and stopped coming.

Hah, that's a specific point we bring up multiple times in the old "Why No One Will Game With You" talk.



TL;DW: People expect that guy to be at public clubs. They show up watching for cool people. Once a group of said "cool people" forms, they meet privately (to avoid that guy) and never return to the club.

At best, you'll see people who semi-regularly go to public clubs. But, their main action is in their private gatherings that are both invite-only and kept deeply secret from the general rabble of the club.

Naoza

You might need a magnet. As an ex magnet at the RIT anime club, (this was long before I knew I was actually performing a service) I can say that having 1 magnet/that guy goes a long way towards making the club function.

Rym

I could throw the version of this we did at Anime Boston up on youtube without too much work. Maybe I'll do that before I head out to PAX.

Not our usual high production values, but good enough. Probably. I haven't actually looked at the footage.

Brand

I think the problem with the magnet idea is we are so few in number and our space is so small. Who and where would we take "those guys" to?

Also, two of the derps have some serious personal space issues. Like both of them take and look at other peoples stuff without asking all the time. The hugging guy (1) thinks he is best friends with everyone (2) has the worst personal space issues. He will get super right in your face to talk to you. And has just takes stuff out of peoples bags (3) The hugging issue. Now, after listening to the panel, I am done with them. We did a lot of stuff hoping to curve their bad behavior because we wanted to be all inclusive. But I feel they should get one more shot after being talked to and that's it.

We used to have a lot of good luck with Facebook (our group has like 500 members). But the invite system for events has changed a lot over the years. Now when I make an event it only invites members who are already my friend and in the group, instead of everyone in the group. So, it is harder to get the word out.

We do have a lot of private parties but at this point it is pretty much everyone but the derps. We need some fresh unrelated blood.

Rym

Burn it down. Start a new club secretly with just the cool people.

Expand under a different brand. Be on facebook, but later. Use meetup or whatever first.

Brand

Rym said:

Burn it down. Start a new club secretly with just the cool people.

LOL, that would be sweet. As the person who does the most work for the club I could just call it quits and then everything would kind of just fall apart.

Until then, I'll look into Meetup though... I know they used it way back the early days before I got here.

I could block creepy huggy dude on Facebook. I did it before and he couldn't see the club events anymore since I make all the events. Which means his annoying friend also couldn't come because he gets the all the events from huggy guy.

Naoza

Your goal is to avoid drama, not create it (which I imagine blocking him would do). This is why the burn it down suggestion works. There's no drama in burning it down. If anything this creates the obscurity for your real action, which is to ban the creepy people.

Brand

Worth talking to the others about. But I feel like the creepy people would just find us again. How do you avoid that?

Rym

One way to avoid that guy is to start small from a strong core and spread invite-only and by word-of-mouth to start.

Don't go public until you have a reasonable critical mass. And even then, go public from separate public profiles for the club: not any of your own personal profiles.

Naoza

I'm no expert but the hope is that by then, you're bigger and have a better venue and have the resources to sustain magnets for them. Or if there especially high on the that-guy scale, talk to them and have them removed from the club.

Brand

At this point I feel the hugging guy totally has to go. I think we felt bad for him and so we let it go but his behavior is just inappropriate. He got a talking to a while back but it seemed to wear off after a while. Last time he tried to hug me, he asked...while in the middle of going for a hug...I did a barrel roll out of his arms. But a couple of the other ladies not willing to say no and just take it even though you can tell they really don't want to. So, if it were up to me alone I'd tell his ass to GTFO.

Churba

Brand said:

At this point I feel the hugging guy totally has to go. I think we felt bad for him and so we let it go but his behavior is just inappropriate. He got a talking to a while back but it seemed to wear off after a while. Last time he tried to hug me, he asked...while in the middle of going for a hug...I did a barrel roll out of his arms. But a couple of the other ladies not willing to say no and just take it even though you can tell they really don't want to. So, if it were up to me alone I'd tell his ass to GTFO.

Taking shit out of people's bags is already a 100% legit reason to 86 the guy.

Neito

So is "refusal to respect personal boundaries".

MATATAT

If someone went in my bag without permission I'd lose my shit. Both literally and figuratively.

Naoza

Brand

That was the best.

No matter what I say it doesn't get through to the dude. I'm pretty sure he thinks we are besties forever... Even though out of the whole group I'm the only one who is always like no dude you can't hug me and you can't touch my shit.

Rym

We never got anyone like that out of our circles except by:

1. Hiding all social events/activity from them until they lost the means to contact us
2. Causing them to cry and hate us forever

...