A new year is upon us, and many of us have ambitious New Year resolutions for 2010.  For many of us, these resolutions and objectives revolve around the San Diego State Libertarian group, which has really yet to sprout.  How poetic that the opportunity to do just this comes during the spring semester.  The seed has, at least, been planted through Facebook networking (SDSU Young Americans for Liberty and SDSU Libertarians—really, one in the same).  There are some rudimentary steps yet to take, but these should be completed in due time over the opening weeks of the spring semester.  For the most part, we should be looking at marketing the club (whatever we ultimately decide to call it) and its message—we should be looking at guiding it through an early growth period, so that it can fully flower during the Fall 2010 semester.  Towards this goal, we should set a number of objectives and checkpoints to motivate us and guide us.  These can be discussed in depth face to face during our first meeting of 2010—this will materialize sometime in the second-half of January 2010.

There is one major bureaucratic process to get through, and that is registration and recognition.  This is actually not too difficult to get done, and will just require some drive.  This will also be discussed in great depth in our first meeting of 2010—this includes deciding on our early officers and finding a professor to advise us (funny enough, the former will probably be more difficult than the latter).  But, this is the easy part.

The difficult part comes after, and that is marketing the club.  We should work at being the best on-campus libertarian club in the United States.  A tall order, given that there are more established groups, but not impossible.  At first, marketing means attracting new members.  We need to establish contacts with the Republican club on campus, and if there is an economics club we should also get into contact with them.  I hate to say this again, but all of this will be discussed in greater detail during the actual face to face meeting.  For the time being, here are some ideas that should be thrown around:

1. Reading groups: Not the most interesting of options, but I see no harm in furthering ourselves intellectually.  We do not have to read to each other, or even read with each other, but we could at least meet for an hour and discuss anything that we have read at home (perhaps we could all agree to a certain book, and a certain amount of pages?).
2. Public speeches:  We all hate public speaking, but this is probably the greatest tool at our disposal.  Besides, we should not expect too many people to attend our events early on.  Nevertheless, we should attract new members by giving speeches on popular subjects: immigration, civil rights, et cetera.  We should find things in common with those that do not completely agree with libertarian philosophy, and work on debating the stickier points later on.  In other words, we should appeal both to the progressives and to the conservatives.
3. Publications:  We could start through something like a blog (even through this one; the SDSU page still has to be worked on), and then maybe even begin printing things out.  This should help us fundraise, as well.  We could “sell” these types of publications, although what we would really be receiving are donations (we are just giving something back).  We could use these donations to fund further publications, or fund events.
4. Real public speeches:  Once we have collected some money, have a decent membership and know we can attract a crowd to public speeches, we should look for professionals.  These will attract even bigger crowds.  Although free is good, I am not sure how many economists or politicians are willing to speak for free, and we will probably have to focus on this part only as the year drags on, and we have collected some money from either the school, fundraising or through donations.
5. Videos:  We could make videos for YouTubes, including of our speeches, and spread the word online.  This will at least market us to other libertarians, who will make us better known throughout other campuses, et cetera.

These methods of marketing are rather ambitious, but not impossible (nor even extreme) —all we need is motivation.  We can use 2010 to not only plant the seed and see the first green shoots, but to completely flower.  Such an effort is sure to pay off over the long-run, and all those who take part are bound to gain some utility.  This will come either through intellectual stimulus, connections, something to write on future curriculum vitae and/or school applications (for those of us going to graduate school), et cetera.

If you are interested in putting forth time and effort (even if it is just attending club meetings) please add yourself to the SDSU YAL Facebook group and/or add me personally (Jonathan Finegold Catalán; I am the only one—you can also add me through this blog’s fan page, which you can reach by clicking on the Facebook box to your right).  We are ready to make this the most active and important libertarian club on any college campus.