Good day! In my hometown, a few of us have formed the genesis of a mandolin club. We aim to meet monthly to collaborate and learn new skills. We prefer slow growth so that we can establish a key reason for being and develop a club routine.
One of our challenges now is to figure out a format for our club gatherings. We will likely meet for about 2-3 hours per month, for a core group meeting. If we grow enough, there could always be future sub-groups forming. For the time being, we have about 6 people who are the core members. We have a community space, so accommodation is not an issue.
Our collective musicians have quite diverse backgrounds - from a couple of orchestral players, to novice players and everything in between. The musical interests include jazz, blues, swing, classical, folk, bluegrass, popular, Eastern European Jewish, Celtic tunes.
How do you format your club meetings? Do you break them down into smaller parts? Do you work on a piece for a period of time so you can practice them in between meetings? How do you propose new items to try? Do you work on skills development in additional to pieces of music? Do you have demonstrations? Do you organize weekend workshops? Do you bother maintaining an upcoming schedule, standing agenda or ad-hoc your meetings?
Keeping in mind that we don't want to start a formal organization with membership dues, bylaws, etc. We would prefer to keep this as a grassroots thing for the time being.
Do you have any ideas for us?
Thanks!
