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Synergizing Meetup With SOLO
by Luke Setzer

Dear Ayn Rand Meetup Organizer:

I want to extend an invitation to you to synergize the convenience and visibility of Meetup with the rational passion of a new, up-and-coming Objectivist organization already making a global impact.  This organization grew from its founder's discontent with what he saw as a reason-passion dichotomy within the Objectivist movement.  Striving for the solid integration of reason and passion with action, Lindsay Perigo and his associates created the Sense Of Life Objectivists (SOLO) in 2001.  Since that time, SOLO has grown steadily and now posts new articles with accompanying discussions daily at

http://www.solohq.com/

In the interest of providing a banner under which local SOLO participants could meet for live discussion, SOLO created its "Local Clubs" division.  Around this same time, Meetup initiated its Ayn Rand category and began drawing interest.  My article about Ayn Rand Meetup at
http://www.solohq.com/Articles/Setzer/Using_Meetup_To_Advance_Objectivism.shtml

offers some insight into this.

Now, as SOLO Local Club Coordinator, I want to invite all Ayn Rand Meetup organizers to fly the SOLO banner.  I have done this for the two Florida Ayn Rand Meetups that I organize for Orlando and Melbourne which converge in Merritt Island the third Saturday of each month at 6 PM.  You can read about them at

http://aynrand.meetup.com/12/

and

http://aynrand.meetup.com/40/

and observe how we have changed the names of these Meetups to "Sense Of Life Objectivists in Florida."

What will you gain from doing this?  For starters, SOLO will offer you free Web space where you can form your own local club and post material.  This gives you additional visibility so that you can invite new participants and expand your pool of potential friends and allies.  Visit the SOLO Florida page at

http://www.solohq.com/Florida/

to gain an idea of what you can do with this free space.

Furthermore, many other learning opportunities exist at SOLO.  The discussions within SOLO stand in contrast with other Objectivist online forums.  As my friend and fellow Floridian George Cordero explains in his article at

http://www.solohq.com/Articles/Cordero/SOLOing.shtml

called "SOLOing":


If interacting with interesting and intelligent people is your goal, look no further. The wonderful cast of characters to choose from is unequaled on the Internet. There is a wise old owl with his weekly "musings", a dialectician with a "heart of gold", a hard-boiled advocate of "kick-ass" who weeps during arias, and a lady of deep insight with a weakness for "Snoopy." The list is extensive and impressive, it includes: Tibor Machan, Chris Sciabarra, Barbara Branden, Lindsay Perigo, Edward Younkins, Nathaniel Branden, James Kilbourne, Jeff Landauer, and Joseph Rowlands. There are many, many others, all passionate about ideas and staunch defenders of their values. They're not always right (although you will be hard pressed to prove it!), but they never fail to offer thought-provoking and interesting analysis.  …  Here Objectivism is not an intellectual parlor game where one dissects every word, as if it were the words that give meaning to the concept instead of the inverse. Here Objectivism is not some endless "open system" unwilling to judge the culture at large. Nor is the Objectivism expressed here a series of stifling rule-bound exercises in being a "true believer." For years Objectivism has needed a bridge between dogmatism and philosophical eclecticism; it is as this bridge that SOLO makes its appeal.

In short, SOLO has stepped into the marketplace of ideas and filled a long unmet demand by "homeless Objectivists" of all stripes for a principled, civilized, rational yet passionate engagement with each other and with the world at large.

I invite you to join our community of friends to exchange ideas and to grow in your understanding and practice of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand -- a philosophy for living the good life in this world.

To team your Ayn Rand Meetup with SOLO involves three steps:

1. Decide on the geographic region you want to cover, e.g. "SOLO Chicago" or "SOLO Illinois."

2. Contact me at LutherSetzer@yahoo.com or (321) 544-7435 to arrange for space on our server.

3. Rename your Ayn Rand Meetup with the new SOLO Local Club name.

It really is that simple!

I look forward to interacting with you.

Sincerely,

Luther "Luke" Setzer

SOLO Local Club Coordinator
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