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My name is Jeanna Rock, and we're talking about how to organize a book group. The first
thing that you need is someone who's in charge. When I organized my book, I was the NAZI book
group leader, and what I said went. In the eleven years that have passed, I am so not
in charge anymore. Everybody else has become empowered, and that's fine. But someone has
to be in charge of getting the list of members, of addresses, phone numbers, email addresses,
and printing those out. So you essentially need a secretary in charge of that kind of
information, of paperwork kind of information. The other thing the secretary must do is print
out a list of all the books that you're going to read that year, where you're going to meet,
who's leading the discussion, and all that pertinent information, and email that out
as well, or at least post it somewhere where everyone has access to it. The next thing
you need to consider is what you're going to read. You've got to have some methodology
of picking books, so as a group you need to decide how you're going to decide what to
read. Are you going to vote on the books that you're going to read that year, or is each
individual member going to choose one that they will present? So some method of picking
books is going to be essential. After you've decided how you're going to pick your books,
you also need to decide who is going to lead the discussion, or if you're going to even
have a discussion leader. In our group, generally one person leads the discussion every month.
But it comes a free-for-all after that, so it really doesn't matter if there is someone
assigned to it, but sometimes it helps to have someone responsible for making sure that
they read the book, and then having some questions that we can discuss. A location is also essential.
Where are you going to meet every month? Sometimes we meet it--we meet in members homes, and
that seems to work really well for us, but you might choose a public place like a library
or a museum, or even a bookstore, if you have a large group and it's not an intimate group
where you know everyone. Once you've decided where you're going to meet, you need to discuss
how often you want to meet. Our group meets once a month, and I know a lot of groups meet
once a month. It generally takes about a month to get through a novel. If you're going to
be reading shorter things like short stories or poetry, maybe every other week would work
well. I would not meet less frequently than once a month, because you still need that
time to connect with your group members and to share their lives. The last thing that
you need to consider is food or no food. Most groups that I've heard of do eat, and we enjoy
that social time at the beginning of our group. We spend probably an hour just chatting with
each other and sharing food before we actually get into the discussion. But if you're meeting
in a place like a library or bookstore, maybe food is not a great idea. So you need to discuss
that with your members as well.