Running A Live Group Are there any other Live Group Leaders about?

[GrinningKittie 0]

Hellosies!I know it has been a while since I have posted. Things have been CRAZY! You see I run a Live Group ( as opposed to dead? Haha). What I mean is I am aClub Organizer and it sometimes eats into my schedule.So what kind of club do I run? Anime for adults. By adults I mean that the members in Tacoma Anime Meetup are 18 years of age on up. I do NOT mean that we watch just explicitly adult programming. I clarify this because when I say adult anime people think of Hentai which is a classification of anime that has nudity or sex ( ranging from mild to OMG please put that back and blind me repeatedly).What is anime? Japanese cartoons. You may be familiar with Yu-Gi-Oh, Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon or Digimon. Those are all anime titles. The nice thing about anime is even though it is all animated, it is NOT all meant for cutesy kid programming. Anime spans all ages and genres. Romance, Action, Comedy, Ecchi ( adult humour but not necessarily hentai), Fantasy, you name it.So why anime? Well my husband is a HUGE anime buff. One of his biggest complaints is that he had a hard time connecting with others of like interest. A lot of people either have no clue what it is or think it's just kiddy or nasty stuff. So I started a live group through meetup.com ( a great place to find others who have your same hobby interests. Some examples are crocheting, dancing, wine tasting, hiking....the list is endless). I'm really not all that into anime ( though there are a few titles I do enjoy) however I do have experience in running a Live Group ( I inherited a Pagan/Witches/Wiccan Meetup Group at one point.....that is another story all together though). So what do we do? Well obviously we watch anime. Many members enjoy reading, translating and trading manga ( these are comic book like paperbacks), drawing up and sharing fan art, making fan fiction, and playing video games. We also listen to J-pop/rock ( Japanese pop or rock music), trying our taste buds out on some japanese cuisines ( one of our members makes some awesome bean paste filled mocchi). We also have a member or two that are fluent in japanese so sometimes the members have fun learning new words. We also have members that are into CosPlay. Wha?COStume PLAY. This means to dress up as a favorite anime character. I always love seeing the members sport their imaginitve outfits.We have a LOT of fun and have come a LONG way. We are just over a year old and are going strong even though this summer the events could not be held at my house ( I had way too much family staying with me this summer). The average number of heads for these fun events are in the 20's. It's a good thing I have a large house! LOL! I hold the meetings twice a month so that there is twice the opportunity to hang out. While anime is NOT my thing I have made plenty of good friends because of this club running.Recently a really good anime shop opened up nearby and the owner has an unused second floor. He offered it to us to use. OMGosh! It is huge! So now the meetups will be held only once a month at my house. Our first official event there is coming up soon and I am just running in circles! LOL! See it was a huge EMPTY space. So I've been hustling and bustling to get furniture, tvs and other stuff for the space. A lot of the members have been real helpful too. Much in the way of hanging wall scrolls and posters have been donated. The cool thing about this space is that we can paint our own anime inspired mural on it.Okay in reality it's me that will be doing most of the drawing on the wall. Other members have offered to paint in what I draw. Plus the members spewed out many ideas on what they would like to see up on the walls.So yeah. It's been crazy busy. New members and new space to prep.The way I run the events is pretty laid back. We ask for donations and each event is a potluck. As I say I can house an army but I canna feed one! LOL!Another thing I really want to start up is a chapter in my town for Project Linus. Project Linus is full of "blanketeers" who knit, crochet, or quilt blankets for children ( ages fresh out of the oven to 18) who are in the hospital. I love crocheting and really want to start some blankets for PL. Right now though I am logged behind on blankets ( trying to get 6 child sized ones done for the holidays). If you are interested in PL just google it ( Project Linus).Since I am going on about groups I will go ahead and explain that Paganesque one that I mentioned earlier. A few years back a friend of mine started it up. I could hardly make it though as her youngest child is my age.....this means her home is not child friendly and with me having two children.......yeah. I can't ALWAYS get a sitter. I was able to start making it though and at one of her events I asked her how she felt about splitting up the hosting location. Her house every other month. The other months we could hold it at my house. That way people with kids could attend as my house is child friendly ( and even baby proofed) so if no one could find a sitter they could still attend. I offered to play house marm. She agreed. Said it was an awesome idea. So we started the next one at my place. I never saw her at another meetup again ( although we are still good friends).Anyways I ran it a bit differently ( she liked to put empasis on learning with ritual). I ran it as an informational event. Members would pick a topic they wanted to know about ( reiki, stones, tarot, herbs, whatever) and we would touch base on that. I even encouraged members to strut their knowledge. It was a lot of fun. It eventually petered out though. I think that had to do with the New Age shop that opened up down the road from my place and the owners started their own Paganesque group ( with the emphasis more on magic and what na than informational learning). That was okay with me though. There are plenty of places where I live that cater to new age, druid, wiccan, witchy, pagany, etc people so I just directed the members to the new group and dropped mine. About this time my focus switched to anime ( for my hubby) and that is where I have been since as far as organizing and coordinating a hobbyist group.So......Do any of you run or participate in a hobby group?Which one?Is it through a site like meetup.com or is it less formal?If you run the group how do you run it?If you are a participant ( not a group lead) then what things do you look for? What things make it fun for you? What could use improving?Alright I have babbled quite enough. I look forward to hearing your answers.-GK