The Esperanto Club at University of Illinois

Allow me to update you on the mind-boggling loveliness of our group here at U of I! Also, some discussion on how to spend the money I can wrangle from the school's club funding. Help me spend this money!

So, first a quick update. The Esperanto club founded by a grad student here and a bit of my Esperanto club have pretty much merged and I think we'll both be the stronger for it. The members so far are really excellent people and I feel like we could accomplish very much. Tomorrow's our next meeting, so I'll leave a comment about that later. Our plan of action was to discuss things for the group, then perhaps lead a lesson, and then read aloud some of "Gerda Malaperis." Someone also has the movie, so we could either watch that once we've finished or perhaps we'll watch it in segments, going along with what we've read. A good time will surely be had by all.

Last weekend (an hour before the Super Bowl) I held an informal lesson in Esperanto for 5 friends, three of which were definitely going to be in the club, one who will most likely be joining though she only just found out about it, and my kind but not altogether too won-over roommate. I think the club will be growing significantly soon. Woo! I hope we can support it.

Now, some ideas I've had on how to spend my college's money. Some books, some advertising for the club (just a little), setting up subscriptions to magazines, and (my personal favorite) making the trip to St. Louis feasible for everyone who wants to go. Allow me to elaborate on that. If we can smash 5 people in a room (not too hard with 2 full beds and a rollaway bed) and get 2 rooms (I'm assuming 10 people would go), and we stayed 3 nights, rooming would cost about $45 dollars total per person. While this is a really great price, it starts to add up quickly when you tack on the $30 registration fee and any of the trips/banquet, etc. I *think* the school will pay for half of the registration fee, bringing our minimum total fee to $60. This price is rather exciting, but in these economic times (a phrase that's not going to be going away for a while) that's a tough price to reconcile for a college student. I hope that we can do some fundraising (though I've no experience in the area) and perhaps bring it down to $40.

My question to you: should this trip be what we should be focusing on for our fundraising money? Or should it be books, or perhaps helping an Esperantist student from another country come visit, or bring in speakers, or host a wild-crazy party for Esperantists to come to from far and wide? Or perhaps setting up scholarship money for some students to attend NASK?

I'd love your input. I'm rather fond of this here organization we have. I'm very proud to be a part of it, and I hope you all will take part in our little club.