Having lived and studied in Aberdeen, Scotland, for a year and a half now, I think it's about time there was a student society for Esperanto, and I'm going to create one.

However, it seems like it's going to be a bit of an uphill struggle getting members - I haven't found anyone who can speak it, and the people who have merely heard of it are few and far between (being mostly European students). But, with 14,000 people at the University of Aberdeen (and then there's Aberdeen's other university, and Aberdeen College), I'm sure that there must be other students out there with an enthusiasm for Esperanto.

So, I ask - Do you guys have any ideas for what we could do, as a society? How could I find Esperantists at uni, and how could I attract more people? Any activities which might be good for the society.

I'm open to all suggestions. If it can work, I'll probably do it, and then post it on a society webpage, for all to see.

You could try to get some attention with an
esperanto karaokeumo event. Just to show how it sounds and looks like this - Esperanto.

Karaokeo projektoj

Gbx,

I would get in touch with Esperanto house in Barlaston. One possible specific idea, once you have a club with a few members going: giving away copies of the small booklet Esperanto Mini-course to potential members.

HAve a look here :
http://fr.lernu.net/komunikado/uzantoj/listo.php...

... and try to send messages to them...

If you feed them, they will come...

At the MIT Esperanto club, we definitely did NOT find that "if you feed them, they will come", although we had heretofore assumed that to be the case!

If your university has an activities fair, I suggest you set up a table there. In the MIT club we would usually collect about a page full of e-mail addresses of people who wanted to be added to our list. That would normally translate to one or two new members who would come to meetings with any regularity. The club's continued existence was fairly tenuous and in my opinion, was largely dependent on existing Esperanto speakers coming to MIT and taking the reins of the club, to keep it going. Few people learned Esperanto through the club and kept up with it. We did a lot of postering, we co-hosted events with other 'compatible' student organizations, we hosted movie showings, events with food, lectures, etc. We hosted a two-week long course every winter during MIT's Independent Activities Period. As far as I'm aware, the club still does all of those things (and still has about the same number of members they had when I was there).

Do, however, establish links with local speakers outside the university. It's a good way to get numbers up at your events. Do invite students from other universities in Aberdeen - I assume there are more than one. We always had some non-students and students from other universities at the MIT club. As far as I know we were the only university in greater Boston with a club, so we tried hard to draw in students from Harvard, Boston University, wherever, and we had some degree of success.