Beyond the Coffee Break

Although I have numerous other things to do with the broader focus of the RIVER Organization, I think it is essential that we launch the River Street Bridge Club sooner, rather than later, as originally planned.

The River Street Bridge Club will be an assembly of people, mostly homeless people and those with first-hand experience with homelessness.

We will meet for multi-purpose objectives.

We intend to have fun and make the atmosphere of the club social-friendly.

It will be a social club, but a social club is not all that it will be.

It will be a club of people helping other people. People sharing ideas with one another. People solving problems. People finding solutions to homelessness and to poverty in general.

Like the RIVER Organization itself, the River Street Bridge Club will be an interaction of people responding to the needs of those in destitution.

Let me make it clear, here and now, the River Street Bridge Club is NOT a separate entity from the RIVER Organization. It is part of the RIVER Organization. It is a club within the RIVER Organization. It is an in-house club. It is sort of like a committee within the body of a larger organization. The exception is, it has looser reins and offers more entertainment and more casual settings, fun and relaxation, than an ordinary committee.

In other words, the club can not make any decisions on its own to engage in any activities which are not approved by the Board of Directors of the RIVER Organization except for those that are standard and inherently left to the club. That is, what are standard procedures of the club to act upon as a regular function of the club.

We will hold monthly meetings. We may eventually have events, larger events than those of which a small club would engage in.

In the interim, we will use whatever meeting places we can find available to begin our meetings. So that we may operate in an orderly, organized fashion until we find a more suitable, permanent gathering location. Such meeting places may also be local church meeting rooms.

One thing that will obviously be important to us is that the meeting place is located on a bus route the homeless can use to come and go to club meetings.

If we can locate such a church which will donate us space to meet and hold our meetings for the small start-up number of members that would be great.

One of the local libraries would be an acceptable alternative since most libraries have public meeting rooms we could use. There are a number of alternatives we can look into for a meeting place.

We also may consider a local McDonald's which has been receptive to small numbers of us well-behaved homeless people in the past. Such meeting places as McDonald's, especially the ones located inside a Wal*Mart and are 24-hour restaurants, will only work for very small numbers of members meeting. Certainly no more than a dozen people or so, and that is stretching it.

The benefit of a McDonald's or similar place is the advantage of being able to have food and drink before, during or after our meetings. We could not do this at the library and even at churches it may create a problem in which we do not want to involve.

Food brings out the best in people. Professional board meetings and any kind of social engagement for the purpose of conducting business meetings always have refreshments. At least, the successful ones do. People are far more responsive when food and drinks, such as soft drinks, coffee or tea is offered.

If need be, we can hold our meetings at library community rooms, church meeting spaces, or a donated business meeting room and then go to someplace like McDonald's afterwards for refreshments.

The idea is simply to create a good atmosphere and allow the members to bond in friendship with one another. This helps them reduce their stress and allows them to interact with other homeless people and those who care about them on a more personal, bonding level.

By setting the mood with inexpensive food and drink and creating a nice social environment, more homeless people would be willing to regularly participate and frequently attend our meetings. Not only that, it provides a way for them to add their input on a number of issues affecting their lives at the same time they are enjoying themselves.

I know of at least one McDonald's where we could even hold our business meetings while having our refreshments without much of a problem.

In warmer weather we could use outside tables at parks while enjoying refreshments as well.

Cliff