Ask Lemmygrad

Could I ask what are the long, medium and short term goals for the group you're trying to organize?

Did you already identify key contradictions playing out in your community and are interested in trying to solve them? Or is this more like a group of people who think Lenin and the like were badass?

lack of discipline and being unmotivated sounds like lack of confidence issues or maybe hopelessness, loneliness etc. Honestly and this might sound silly, but you should really consider including simple activities like finding interesting places around the city based on pictures provided and ik there's a name for it, but I have never played it so I forgot, but a lot of shy people are extremely self-cautious and group walks with a goal can ease them in much better than awkwardly sitting around in a claustrophobic room.

You could even do a socialist theme around it, like imagine how cool it'd be to go on a hike and learn about Mao's long march f.ex At least I'd be willing to do that with you. In between the events there's analysis and theory hours. I'm not exactly sure why i haven't thought of this before, but I'm writing this down in my notes lol

Might be better to do it in the native language, if you speak it. The goal is local organizing afterall, so why in English?

I'd be extremely interested in something like this. Maybe "socialist" would turn off propagandized people. Would something like "working class issues reading and activity group" work? Activity for the walking tour idea mentioned. Also maybe mutual aid, later, like meal or nonperishable foods distribution, if enough interest is shown.

If you're going to be publicly reading the book at the meeting instead of saying 'read X chapter before the meeting' have a format where you read for X amount of minutes then break for a discussion period for X amount of minutes, where you alternate between reading and discussing until the end of the session. To make sure discussions don't get out of hand, follow a loose sort of roberts rules for meetings where you have a speakers list that allots like 1-2 minutes of speaking time per person with new people having priority and repeat speakers being sent to the bottom of the list every time they raise their hand.

So like initially if we're having a discussion where I raise my hand, jimbo raises his hand, Octavia raises her hand, Josh raises his hand, Jessica raises her hand, and Trotters raises his hand, the speaking list would be as follows

1. Alaskaball
2. Jimbo
3. Octavia
4. Josh
5. Jessica
6. Trotters

And let's say that by the time we reached Josh, I want to speak again because someone said something that inspires me to add to it BUT another person who hadn't spoken, Kiara and José, both raise their hands at the same time. The list would look like as follows

1. ~~Alaskaball~~
2. ~~Jimbo~~
3. ~~Octavia~~
4. Josh
5. Jessica
6. Trotters
7. Kiara
8. José
9. Alaskaball

Make sure you keep track of the allotted time for discussion periods to make sure you don't burn your reading time by being firm with saying who's going to be the last speaker for this round but you'll keep the list of speakers who didn't speak so the next round they can go first if they wish to.

This communal reading and discussing style can seem slower for the more book savvy and intelligentsia types but public reading discussions definitely helps build a common foundation of theoretical literacy for the group as a whole.