Success Plan: Eight Strategies

Objectivist clubs often fail. Reasons include: lack of time on the part of the organizer. a bad atmosphere because attendees are rude to each other, attendees don't get what they expect at first meeting and never return, attendees attend only to beat other people in a debates, a lack of meaningful topics, activities or social interation. Therefore, to overcome this challenge I thought up several strategies to help make our groups succeed.

1. LOCATION: It should be held in central location for people in the area.

2. SCHEDULING: People are more able to attend events on the weekends and they have to eat dinner anyway so SVO meets on the Second Sunday and LAO on the Fourth Sunday.

3. CONTENT: People attending an Objectivist club should get what they come for— philosophic content that is intellectually stimulating and benefits their life.

4. PROMOTION: We intend to have several promotional mechanisms: eNewsletter, website, classified ads in weekly & college papers and publicity from inviting the reporters to get unconventional takes on current news from our members.

5. REGULARITY : The group should always meet on the same day, at the same time and in the same locatioon to keep it easy on people with our busy lives.

6. FRIENDLY ATMOSPHERE: Like the song to the TV show "Cheers", we want to go to a place where "everyone knows our name." I encourage everyone to greet people as the arrive by name and also when they depart. We wear name tags so that we can easily refer to each other. I want everyone to debate in a friendly, intellectual manner not with a scorched-earth approach. Remember, our goal is to search for the truth not to be king of the hill.

7. VOLUNTEERS: I am hoping that people will volunteer to lead discussions, social events and activist projects. The more people that contribute, the richer the experience for all.

8. COMPENSATION: Since organizing an event, even the regular monthy meetings is time consuming I suggest that everyone that organizes an event receive $2 from each attendee. It's not a lot of money but symbolizes each persons appreciation to the organizer and provides a partial reimbursement for the time and financial costs of organizing something. It provides a slight incentive system to promote popular events. To get your $2 back just organize an event yourself. The more "customers" you get the more money you make. It's only a fraction of the cost of going to a movie and hopefully much more rewarding.