Tips to organize a Book Club for residents of your apartment
Life has become hectic especially for us who live in metros. These days we often find that office, home and duties have absorbed our human emotions mostly and more than requirement we have become self-centered. We live our lives mechanically and remain cut off socially even from our close door neighbors. We live is an isolated community, which at time starts bugging. The best productive way to make a true community is spending some quality time together, and exchanging positive thoughts with each other. Where arranging cultural programs help us in spending quality time together, organizing a book club is a good idea for sharing good thoughts and to form a complete social support for each other.
The home work
Finding a place where book club members can sit together and can talk about the books they have read is the whole plan for a book club, but as it sounds easy it’s not that easy unless there is a collaborative effort to make things happening. There comes the question of homework. The home work agenda for organizing a book club is-
- Where the general meeting will be held?
- How many members will be interested to participate in the agenda?
- If the community hall is available for organizing the general meetings.
Unless there is rampant support from the whole housing community, it is better to start with a smaller group like 5-7 families for starting the book club.
Inviting others
Living in a housing complex has its great advantage of easy communication with each other. Therefore, when you are planning to invite your neighbors in the new community book club, word of mouth is the best and most intimate way to inform them about this latest development in your community. In case you have bulletin board of your society, publish a small new covering the idea of upcoming book club.
Arrange a general meeting
A general meeting with the community members will initiate the whole thing faster. Allow all members’ to take active initiative in the new community development. Take the suggestion for everybody about the selection of books and other clauses they think will help to make the proposed book club a better place for community development. Ask interested members and avid readers to make a list for books which should be discussed in the book club.
However, the best cup of tea for a book club is to keep rolling the discussion on about the books you are interested to share with each other. Ask the avid readers to supply their preferences. Encourage all reader’s/members to write down their appreciation/criticism on the books they have read so far.
Decide on the next meeting
Now it is a great question when and where this discussion will be next. You can plan it after two weeks or after one month as per the vote of majority members. You may rotate the discussion venue in some other members’ place as well. However, take a watch on the members’ reaction; whether they are happy with the interaction or they are becoming indifferent???
Once you will start a book club, you will find it amazingly that turning the last page of a book is not the end of the journey you started with the author…it begins actually after you have finished its reading and after sharing your emotion about the reading you have enjoyed so far alone. A community book club will help you to share, nourish, and nurture the thoughts about a well-read book between community members and make the emotional bond stronger each day between them as good neighbors.
