Anime Clubs

[ashfire]

I had been a member of a anime club back in the 80s up to the 90s which had started at a community college. Most of the people involved were students at the college. I joined the club but I was not a student but a outside member but if the club attended a con or function paperwork for all members of the club had to be filled out. Most of the club officers were students. I was older than most of the members in the club by 20 years.
Now My knowledge of most clubs are that they are school or college affiliated with some connected to some organization. I have wonder if any are private clubs made up of people that would be older than most that are connected to school or college anime clubs. Now I am a staff member at a anime con and have to contact them to let them know I will be working when the con comes up but I live 2 or more hours away. In a way I think of being part of a club but being way out the area to be involved in staff activities until the con starts.
I have thought to ask former members of our old anime club if they would want to start a club for people in our age bracket or older that like anime or anything involved with it.
One thing would be finding a place to meet without being charged and video equipment. We could meet at members homes if there is space for a number of people.
Some of the members have Facebook connections with myself and two I have attended anime cons with and have run into old members at a con or two.
In a way it was fun having a large group of friends that were interested in the same thing and traveling together. We would attend up to four cons or more depending on where they were.
Group rates for hotels or cons helped in saving when attending depending on how many days you stayed. If a con was hours away it better to be there a day ahead but leave when the con was close to ending. Since I work as staff I get asked to attend a dinner after the con is completely closed and then I leave the next day. A lot of cons do ask anime clubs to be part of their staff to help with their needs. I have helped with medical and security at cons and asked if members would help with that or computer or video assistance but they were not interested.

[ClosetOtaku]

I have never been part of an anime club, more for lack of time than lack of interest. There is an anime club here at GMU in Northern Virginia, and an active one at that, but they schedule their meetings when I simply cannot attend.

All of the anime clubs that I've been passingly familiar with have been at high schools or colleges/universities. I haven't looked up any MeetUps for anime yet, and I'm not sure I will: I am an avid board gamer, and I've been to a couple board game MeetUps, and... well, they haven't worked out very well, so I stick with private groups of reliable (and, TBH, generally more stable) players of my age and interests.

Just like I would love to put some of my old gaming groups back together (and do an Origins or a GenCon, just like the old days), I can understand your desire to re-assemble your friends into a functional unit. For reasons mentioned, I think that is a better option than casting a wide net for existing groups.

Although we play in private gaming groups, we frequently will visit other venues -- mostly game stores, sometimes conventions -- and find players who we think might be a good fit for our groups, and invite them to try us out. It's a slow and deliberate process, but it works. The results have been encouraging. One of our gaming groups rents a beach house for a week in May and we go and just game. Others travel to conventions -- both regional and national -- and room together. We have groups that have been meeting regularly for over one to two decades, and a smaller group of 5-6 regular members that is going strong after four years.

So my suggestion would be to build your core out of people you know and trust, and go searching for a few good and new people who can make the commitment. It is likely that they in turn will be able to bring in other interested people, and so on. It is a matter of time, organization, and patience. But it certainly can be done, particularly in the era of smart phones and websites.

tl;dr - Go for it. With friends first.