It was five years ago when the idea of "making a book club" came to mind. Honestly, I didn't even know what typically occurs at a book club meeting. I envisioned the scene from the Jerry Maguire movie; a meeting with a handful of similar minded women, snacking on someone's latest recipe experiment, sipping coffee, discussing points of views, all in someone's living room. It was when I started web surfing, educating myself on what exactly is involved, that I let myself believe I was up for the attempt. I was afraid of a nightmare, book bully, that would be rude and scare existing members. I cringed at the thought of someone being offended at everything so that no one could respectfully converse. I wanted to do it right. I wanted to avoid mistakes by anticipating all that could go wrong, by laying out the rules, of what's expected and what's not tolerated.
I recognized that it was to my advantage that I could choose the time and day. I needed it to work for me in particular, but also for fellow members so that they would continue to come. I knew that a funky, impossible meeting time wouldn't work nor one that's too close to the "5 o' clock somewhere" cut off (when people weren't even off of work yet). That's when the "6pm" time was born.
I couldn't picture me making a weekly meeting, let alone leading a weekly meeting nor finishing a book in a week's time. It was then that my initial idea of a "weekly" meeting morphed into the more ideal concept of a "monthly meeting".
I remember clearly, I was talking to the owner of a local coffee shop about what fun it would be to combine book reading and then watching the movie afterwards with a discussion group. Kind of like a movie-book club. It was then when I mentioned how I'd like to start a book club. She offered to have it at her shop. "Tuesday" was mentioned (had to fit around the knitting club), and from there, everything kind of came together slowly, haphazardly.
I have to chuckle, because I remember the moments while heading out the door to the very first meeting (Feb. 2011). After all the prep work with fliers, ad, and word of mouth, I was expecting twenty or more people. I had a lot of food, MANY copies of our "club handout" in hand, and a lot of anxiety-flashbacks of college public speaking. The official number of attendees of the first meeting was.....4!
Through the years we've had people trickle in and trickle out. We've had the die-hards and the drop-ins. Many hellos and unfortunately some sad goodbyes. Aside from all the wonderful, insightful, conversations and all of the unique perspectives from all of our discussions, I most appreciate our members as my valued friends.
Happy 5th year of The Page Turner Book Club!!
October's book was; One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
