I took a small number of notes from one of the discussions, and the
themes went as such:
Some small changes: perhaps raise the maximum age to 35 or 30 (as is
TEJO's requirement), and move the USEJ site into E-USA's site (done,
thanks to the wonderful EUSA site admin).
Ideas about meetups: piggy-back onto regular E-USA congresses and
other yearly meetups (like the Auxtuna Renkontigxo de Esperanto in New
York), perhaps organizing our own if we have enough active members.
For our own meetups, we were talking about camping somewhere possibly,
as it would be fun and (most importantly) cheap! However, I personally
cannot say that I would be any help in a camping situation. Heh.
To bring in more youth Esperantists: A concerted effort to contact
local newspapers & etc to put more articles about Esperanto out there
would help very much. For those who live near college campuses, I got
a majority of my totally new members from putting a blurb in some
newsletters that different schools of the university give out. So I
suggest having an intro to Esperanto presentation somewhere
(lighthearted!) and advertising it there, also planting the seed of
how cool it would be to start an Eo club at their college. Luring them
in with the prospects of a trip to the national congress and possible
trips internationally, I can imagine success pretty much anywhere.
Perhaps nearby pockets of existing youth Esperantists could come to
these presentations as proof of how awesome it is. I'm certainly
willing to make a trip if given warning.
Going along with this, some great advice was given at the discussion
as well: during Eo presentations, focus more on the "These are my
sweet-awesome experiences with E-o, here are pictures, look what you
can do with it!" rather than the vision of a world full of Esperanto
speakers (though I'm a bit fond of the image myself).
Much more was discussed though I can't think of it at the moment.
Hopefully other attendees will post what they remember. What are your
comments?
Darsi