Best way to organize unicycle club meetings

Hi Reid,

I suggest that your meetings not involve riding and that
someone make an agenda and even take minutes. I know the
formality stinks but ithat investment will pay tons down the
road. The few meetings that we've had were week days at
lunch. Ther reason that there are so few meetings with the
MUC is that we are using an old, tried-and-ture form of
organization called dictatorship. It seems to be working
quite well - from my stand point.

Tommy

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Tommy Thompson
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My experience is as a member of a large, organized club
(Redford), and then the starter of a couple of less
organized, less formal clubs (Long Island Unicyclists and
Gold Country Unicyclists).

Tommy has a point on the paperwork aspect. Keep it
separate and you'll hopefully get people involved. Try to
mix it with the riding and none of it will likely get
done, except by you.

My experience suggests you need a little bit of structure,
or people will not know what's going on, and your meetings
will not have a clear beginning and ending. If you have
something structured at the official start time, and again
at the end time, You can attach whatever necessary
activities and announcements onto that, while leaving a
portion of your time wide open if that's what works for
your riders.

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John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
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The challange is to make it interesting for riders of all
levels. Since neither of us have experienced a true thriving
unicycle club, it seems a little mysterious. You have some
riders who have had a unicycle for 10 years and can idle,
hop, ride backwards etc... While others have yet to ride ten
feet, or freemount. I can see how things could be broken
down to skill level groups if you have a lot of members, but
what if you have 5 all different levels and ages?

Also is it wise to set up a club based on the specific types
of interest? Such as Muni, Trials, Freestyle, Performance,
Touring, or do people make clicks on their own based on
their own passion?

Though I enjoy the skills that you can develop through
freestyle, I don't see myself performing in freestyle events
at any future NAUCC events. Though Muni, Trials, Touring and
Racing does appeal to me. I have yet to play a single game
of hockey or basketball, so I am not to sure how I would
like those.

Last is the geographic issues that we deal with in Atlanta.
I live maybe 20-25 minutes from Reid, but almost an hour
from most of the meetings we have had. I would like to see
more frequent "local" meetings with larger less frequent
area meetings. Even if the "local" meetings are just two
people hitting the trails.

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bugman - Survivor 2004 Wolfman Duathalon
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Yes, I definitely see Tommy's and John's point about having
separate planning meetings and riding "get-togethers". Good
advice. Are your riding "get-togethers" also structured,
like your planning meetings?

I guess the best way to get the club going is for Chad and
me to go riding together more often and invite everybody in
the Atlanta club and Atlanta Juggling club to join us. We
will naturally get more organized (we'll have to) as we
increase our rider numbers.

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The way that we do rides in the MUC is sort of loose.
However, there is a general plan (MUni, urban playing,
freestyle, basketball-gym stuff, etc.) and within that we
make-up the specific part on the spot after we see who is
there and what we feel like doing. I think that if you
present too much structure to your rides you will dilute
your herd too much. I think that most of us just like
sharing the camaraderie of being together. Anybody can ride
to their heart’s content by themselves but we get together
to share that screwy passion we have for playing on one
wheel. Our Tuesday evening practices (and most well
attended) are a perfect example of this. We meet at a public
park plaza. The plaza has flat, smooth places to learn and
develop skills, tons of steps and is adjacent to some easy
trails through an old-growth forest. The plaza serves as a
rendezvous point and sort of a hub. We ride and focus on
what each individual is more interested in doing and then
generally hang-out at the plaza between playing on trials
challenges, playing on the trails and/or learning to mount.

However, back on topic here, I try to keep the business part
of running the club somewhat separate from the playing part.
Be joyous and silly at your riding gatherings but sometimes
you’ve got to make some decisions that are not based in
being silly – like insurance, 501(C)3 status….Oh geez, I’ve
got work to do…. Gotta go.

Tommy

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Tommy Thompson
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As for Tommy Thompson's suggestion of meeting around a table
without unicycles, that may work in Memphis, but it would
never fly in NYC. You pretty much have to go with the flow
of your group. And face that this keeps certain members
coming back to your group, and makes others lose interest.
As an example, I have suggested that our club try some of
the group riding routines many uni clubs do, and got
seriously chewed out for suggesting that. The idea was just
killed quickly. That's what I mean by each group finds its
own interests/activities and resists changes in the status
quo. You have to see what your group attracts.

In NYC, we just meet outside (first Sunday, third Saturday
of each month) with all the unicycles we can gather. We
ride, chat, munch, juggle, and provide LOTS of
encouragement and teaching for anyone. We also exchange
informal product reviews and tips on quality of products
and such. David Stone keeps the minutes and emails them to
everyone. That works.

If we need to do some business, like website design or tee-
shirts or planning an annual party, we just pull a few
interested members off to the side for that and do the job.

A website helps (NewYorkUnicycle.com), and meeting in a
public park with many passerrs-by may bring in new members,
though we haven't found that. Lately we have been getting TV
morning shows and major local magazines to give us
coverage!!

I suggest you try different things, and see what your group
likes--what keeps members coming back.

Good luck!

--
BillyTheMountain
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Hi Billy,

I could not agree with you more. It is the "off to the side"
part of what you are talking about that I suggest is what
works for us. We have found that when we need to "talk
business" it is best to dedicate a place in time and space
for that to happen.

I agree, too, that you need to do what works for the group.
Last year at the NAUCC we held an all-comers, round table
discussion on what works for each club. The clubs
represented at that conversation were as diverse as they
could have been - from very structured to the most
serendipitous gatherings. Whatever works – works.

There are so few of us (unicyclist) that we have few options
to choose from in regard to organizations, clubs, etc. When
ego, agenda and vision get in the way of having fun folks
will vote with their feet.

Tommy

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Tommy Thompson
Memphis Unicycle Club
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I think having really cool shirts and logos make a big
difference. I think what you call yourselves makes a
difference as well. In Atlanta, I want to make it as
inclusive as possible. At the same time, you have to be
aware of what your initials spell out.

MUC NYU AZU LUC TCUC RTUC

All good.🙂

AUC Atlanta Unicycle Club🙄 SUC Southern Unicycle
Club🙁 TAU Team Atlanta Unicycling😄 My favorite so far.

The TAU of Unicycling. Finding your inner balance. Logo
could be a wheel with the ying/yang symbol... I published it
here first, so I am Copyrighting, Trademarking the idea here
and now. I can think of all kinds of one liners and logo
ideas. Of course some may find it offensive. Not sure. What
do some others think? It isn't as offensive as Southern
Unicyle Club to me.

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bugman - Survivor 2004 Wolfman Duathalon
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I don't have much experience with a unicycling club, but
here's a few suggestions from a juggling club. We meet every
week for about two hours. We have any announcements an hour
into the meeting. That way, people have time to get there
late, leave early, etc.

Try and get into a newspaper if at all possible. Write up an
article about yourselves and send it in. I was riding down
the street and a reporter for a local newspaper stopped me
and asked if he could do an article on me. We set up a time
and we had an excellent article written about me and the
juggling club. After that, we got a lot of exposure and a
lot of gigs which helped with the size of the club. We now
have a relatively large club and make lots of money (we're a
not-for-profit organization and will do volunteer gigs just
as fast as paid gigs, but people just want to give us money
for some reason 🙂 ).

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Your logo for the club TAU should be the greek letter, Tau.
Unfortunately, Tau is one of those letters that is boring,
and is simply the figure T.

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bugman said:

*AUC Atlanta Unicycle Club🙄 SUC Southern Unicycle
Club🙁 TAU Team Atlanta Unicycling😄 My favorite so far. *

I thought of and rejected SUC for my club a long time ago
(Sacramento). It sounds a lot better than Folsom Unicycle
Club (where I lived before).

If I start up a club again it might be called US, the
Unicyclists of Sacramento.

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John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
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"Hey, could I have some of that spinach? I need to get this pork rind
taste out of my mouth." -- Ryan Atkins to Kris Holm, on the way back
from Moab after sampling some of my pork rinds. They grossed out the
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Gosh, I was blessed when we were talking about starting our
club. Lewis (Animation) came up with "Come out and play in
the MUC!" I think that slogan should be worth some money.

Tommy

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Tommy Thompson
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Thank you all for your good ideas and discussion. I have no
doubt that we can make our club successful.

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Thank you all for your good ideas and discussion. I have no
doubt that we can make our club successful.

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I was wearing the shirt I got from GBarnes the other day and realized it
says I suck on the front!:eek:

ISUUC Iowa State Unicycling Club

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I was wearing the shirt I got from GBarnes the other day and realized it
says I suck on the front!:eek:

ISUUC Iowa State Unicycling Club

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I think having an up to date website for the club is
important, so people don't have to go to one meeting to find
out when the next meeting
is.

It also saves you from saying SATURDAY AT 10 on the phone
over and over again on Thursday.

During the winter, when we have to rent space, we have one
weekly meeting of 2 hours.

During the non-winter seasons, I schedule 2 rides per week.
One ride is the ride for beginners, or trick-working-on'ers,
to come out...and if no one new shows up and we want to go
for a ride, we'll go for a ride.

The other day of the week alternates between MUni and Urban.

I think this schedule will please everyone.

We've never had a formal meeting dealing with paperwork,
or anything.

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bugman said:

*The TAU of Unicycling. Finding your inner balance. Logo
could be a wheel with the ying/yang symbol*

I like that.

You can borrow my mantra if you like. Works for me. (most
of the time)

How about ATLUNI. That way you get to say "Loonie".

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"do not think, just ride"...muniracer
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