Clubs and Societies

There is no question that I need to start a club or society next year. For about a year now I have been awaiting the day that the sun dawns to shed its beautifying light over the Esperanto Society. New circumstances may have come to pass however.

I was having a delightful conversation with Ian Rocker this morning. I walked around with him as he notified some people about the German Club's dinner at Gustav's by Washington Square. Soon our conversation moved from German Club to Ian's very own child: the Norwegian Club. Apparently membership is stable at around 5 or 6 people. This led me to mention my forays into Old English. As a side note, his best friend Charles Runckle is now learning Flemish in college at Dartmouth. Flemish is closely related to Old English, but is not an extinct language, so it's pretty cool. Anyway, Ian brought up the idea of starting an Old English Society.

The idea appeals to me very much, but I am hesitant for a number of reasons. The first is that I know very little, and it's not nearly as easy as Esperanto. I wouldn't have to really be proficient by the time I started the club because the goal would be to learn it collectively, but I would need stronger background knowledge in order to be able to seriously lead the group for a few weeks. If I worked this summer, I could pretty easily achieve this. Since it's a dead language, speaking it wouldn't be important except for any die-hard Anglo-Saxonites. We'd just read Beowulf, Chaucer, and random bits of poetry.

The other obvious problem is the issue of interest. Ian thinks that an Old English society would attract more people than even his Norwegian Club because there would be both language and literature enthusiasts interested. The other option would be to start the Ancient Language Society, dedicated to the study of dead languages. I fear that such a club would too easily lose focus.

So here is my question to you. What do you think that the membership would reach in an Old English Society, an Ancient Language Society, and an Esperanto Society? The desirable membership would be between 8 and 10 dedicated people. It wouldn't be good to have unenthusiatic half-hearted members. Which would you recommend starting? Even if none of these plans pan out, at least there will be Ian's Classical Music Club next year.