HowtostartaSlowerLivingClub

It is not

• A support group. People will share, but nobody has to.
• A ban. The phones come back out at the end.
• A brand. There is no official version, and this is only how I would do it.
• A lecture about screens. Everyone there already knows.
• A place to sell anything, courses and newsletters included.

Ways to invite

• Ask five people to their face. Start with the friend who says they are too busy and the coworker who reads at lunch.
• A paper flyer with tear-off tabs, up at the library and the coffee shop. There is one to print at the end of this guide.
• Ask the library to put it in their events calendar. They will, and it makes it look official.
• The community listings in the local paper, which are still free and still read.
• A group text to the four people who might come, with the date in it, rather than a group chat that lives forever.
• Tell the barista. They know everybody.

Good rooms

• A public park, with a bench or a blanket.
• A library meeting room. Free to book, and nobody minds.
• The back table at a coffee shop on its slow afternoon. Everybody buys a drink.
• A community center or a church hall on a weeknight.
• A bar on its quiet night, if the club is adults.
• Someone's porch, kitchen or backyard, once people know each other.
• A bookstore that hosts things. Ask; the answer is usually yes.

Hosting, in four lines

• New people first, always.
• Nobody has to talk. Nobody gets to talk the whole time.
• Nothing gets sold here, and nobody lectures about screens.
• If the conversation stalls, ask the quietest person what they did last weekend.

• What you did with your last free Saturday.
• The last thing you made with your hands.
• What you are reading, and what you gave up on.
• Boredom. When did you last sit all the way through it?
• The hour of the day you would most like back.
• Something you do slowly on purpose. Bread, film, letters, the long way home.
• The one app you can't quit, and what it would take.
• Being unreachable for a day. When did you last try it?
• How you get places now. Your best getting-lost story.
• The things you used to photograph. What happens to a moment when you don't.
• Phones and kids. Yours, or the ones you were.
• Friends who think this is a bit much. What do you say?
• The last time you were early somewhere with nothing to do.
• What you remember about before. What you would tell someone who doesn't.

• A walk with no destination and no map. Turn where the group wants.
• Letter-writing night. Bring stamps and paper. Everyone leaves with something to mail.
• A photo walk on film or cheap digital cameras. Get them developed and bring the prints next time.
• Silent reading, thirty minutes, then talk about what you read. Bring the book you keep meaning to finish.
• Cards or a board game. Someone teaches one game well.
• A potluck, with the recipe written on a card next to the dish.
• A swap table: books, records, plants, whatever is in the back of the closet.
• A repair hour. Jeans, a lamp, a bike tire, a wobbly chair. One person who knows how, everyone else learns.
• A paper-map treasure hunt across your own neighborhood.
• A record night. One album all the way through, and nobody skips.
• Everybody steps outside and calls someone they have been meaning to call.
• A show or a reading, phones in the box the whole time. Notice how it feels.

• Take two or three photos a meeting, on film or a cheap camera, and ask first. Print one and keep it in the box.
• Keep a paper logbook in the box: the date, the place, how many came, what you did. After a year it is the club's history.
• Tell the local paper. Small papers love this story and they are right to.
• Tell one person who would like it and is not going to come. Word gets around slowly, which is fine.
• Email me a photo and your town, and I will hang it on this site. hello@slowerliving.club.