Betty White and Ed Asner attend the Genesis Awards, hosted by the Humane Society.
If you are committed to the Humane Society's mission of upholding animal rights, then forming a chapter in your hometown can offer you a way to educate others in your community about your cause as well as to recruit other like-minded people.
Instructions
1. Find an advisor. This is usually a requirement for student clubs. Most advisors are professors on campus who are experts in or have a passion for animal protection. If you are not a student, you may need advice in organizational management or fundraising. Teachers, religious leaders and local entrepreneurs can serve as advisors for a hometown Humane Society chapter.
2. Gather core members. Find one or two other people to help you start the club. While it is possible to start a chapter with one person, three people working together will spread the work around and prevent burnout. The three founding members can also fulfill the most crucial positions in a chapter: the president, secretary and treasurer.
3. Fill out club paper work. Campus chapters will have to go through a whole recognition process that includes gathering the signatures of the advisor and founding members, writing a constitution and submitting it to the judiciary.
4. Book a meeting space for the first meeting. Colleges have rooms dedicated to student organizations that can be rented either for free or for a nominal fee. For Humane Society chapters forming off-campus, churches, community centers and libraries usually have space available for meetings.
5. Gather literature and videos. At the first meeting you and the other founding members should give a speech about the Humane Society to inform your visitors. However, the Society also has some powerful videos and literature. On the website, they have flyers you can print out and distribute to new members as well as videos you can screen to make your meeting a more engaging experience.
6. Buy or make snacks for the meeting. Believe it or not, free food can be quite a draw for events, especially among the student crowd. Since there is a good chance you will have vegetarians among your guests, go for meat-free fare.
7. Write an agenda. Agendas are invaluable in keeping your meeting on track. Those leading the meeting should have an agenda and if possible print copies for everyone in the audience. It will give them an idea of how the meeting is progressing and keep them from getting antsy.
8. Hold the meeting. Introduce yourself and the issues that mean the most to you. Talk about the history of the Humane Society. This will let your members know that they are a part of an organization that is bigger than themselves; one that has accomplished a lot in the protection of animals. Encourage them to talk about why they care for animals, which will help to build camaraderie with the knowledge that everyone in the room is working together on the same goal. Be sure to collect names and contact information.
9. Summarize the information from the meeting and send it to your new members via email to remind them of what they accomplished and also remind them of the date and location of the next meeting.
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