Pipe club activities

[yellowfan]

I recently had a pipe club dropped into my lap, meaning I am now the one primarily in charge. Since I am fairly good at administration and passionate about pipes and pipe smoking, I think I have done fairly well. However I am always open about other things we can do while attending a pipe club. Our club meets once a month from 7-11pm.
So does anyone have any suggestions about things a pipe club can do while we meet?

 

[condorlover1]

Well you could taste some tobacco blend from different makers?

 

[pylorns]

We do little slow smoke competitions. You can also have everyone throw in 10 or 20 bucks and then pick a name from a hat and that person walks away with a pipe from your local pipe shop.

 

[yellowfan]

We do tastings. We have a tobacco bar that any of the members can smoke and take tobacco home. If any of the members want a tobacco for the bar, their membership fee pays for it. We also have pipe raffles.

 

[crazypipe]

Have a pipe club pipe made for your club, and sell some of them here at PM ::

 

[cosmicfolklore]

You might ask your tobacconist to recommend a distributor come and visit. We have the guy from lane coming to our next meeting to let us blend tobacco to try to come up with a club blend. This was set up by our pipe shop owner. I'm hoping to learn a little about how these flavors work together and such.

 

[yellowfan]

Cosmicfolklore, I wish our "tobacconist" could recommend anything like that. The thing is, he is really unhelpful in every way except staying open for our club for free each month. I would be interested in having a pipe club pipe or a pipe club tobacco but I don't know the first step in getting identical pipes like that.

 

[lestrout]

yo yelmo - Many of the makers and artisans are more than willing to make a set of club pipes. Kaywoodie and Mark Tinsky make it particularly easy to get a project going.
hp

les

 

[bwithers55]

The biggest challenge we always faced for a club pipe was getting subscriptions. Coming up with a shape and price that all could agree to was a challenge, but getting the deposits in place before placing an order was another. Then there is the expectation of a new club pipe every year. I'm glad my pipe club no longer does it.
getting in speakers from tobacco companies were the best. I remember when p. stoke bye came with a boatload of free tobacco. Wow!
Best Wishes,

Bill Withers

 

[northernneil]

It would be a lot of extra work, but bringing in local business owners to do presentations might be fun. If there are local breweries or coffee roasters, that could be a good place to start. I mean we all usually enjoy a nice beverage during a smoke anyway's.

 

[ocpsdan]

Do an interest/ educational piece each meeting that goes in a rotation. Meaning, have your members research a given pipe smoking topic or factoid and present it to the club. Then draw the next name from the hat, and the chosen will have to do the next topic. If you can get your folks on board with this idea, it will make the club grow as a whole.