Bookclub Information

Book Club Guidelines

Books will be nominated at the meeting prior to the meeting at which a vote is taken. This will give the voters time to consider their choices.

Nominators should have read the book they are nominating.

Nominators must provide a written review (not self-authored) at the nominating meeting. Reviews are available at amazon.com and other on-line sources. The reviews can be emailed to the members prior to the nominating meeting. If only hard copies are available, it is the responsibility of the nominator to bring enough copies for everyone. She may also have to mail copies to those who don't attend the nominating meeting.

By voting for a book or an event, the voter is committing to reading the book or participating in the event. (No more secret ballots.)

The group should decide, prior to voting, on the maximum number of votes a person can cast. A person can then vote for this number or less. 8 votes were chosen as the maximum for the first half of 1998. This number included Sammath Naur, Moolelo Hoaloha and other events. This number worked well. Perhaps 7 should be chosen for the second half of the year.

additions:
If a book or an event does not receive a majority of the votes cast, it will not be scheduled. This may result in fewer meetings than expected.

If members cannot attend the voting meeting, they can email their votes to someone else who is coming to the meeting.

Members should feel free to express their opinions in open discussion.

There were some comments about hesitancy to voice opinions in open discussion when the author or book is a favorite of one of the members (or if the author happens to be present). There was also mention of making comments privately about the book. I think this should be discouraged. We're all friends here. We should be able to speak our mind in open group discussion. Free and open discussion is what we're aiming towards. If we hold back our opinions we're only deprecating the very thing we want to promote. This is why I included the last item in the guidelines.

Penalties for not following the guidelines were not discussed, but they would probably involve jello, peanut butter, or motor oil.

Additional Additions:
The person nominating the book or event is designated as the discussion leader, and is responsible for gathering the group and starting and moderating the discussion. The default discussion time is 5PM. A different time may be agreed upon by the discussion leader and the host but all the members of the group should be notified of the change in advance of the meeting date.