This news article are in two parts. Part I is dealing with the
creation of your club . Part II gives you some tips on how
to run your club.

Part I
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The creation of a club:

When thinking of starting a club you must consider some things :

1: What are your main reasons of starting a new club ?
2: Are there other clubs that are the same ?
3: Do you have time to run a club?

1 : Are you just creating a club to get more attention from fellow
Deviants ? Think it over. If you just create a club and then after
a while abandons it , you may loose more friends than you get!
Fame are not always easy to claim, and people who have it
have often worked hard for it !

Start a club where the main subject is something that interests you.
If you have a interest of design and really like web-design , then a
Web-designers club could be just the thing for you!

You as the founder must act as a leader. You must be able to
talk about common interests and maybe even guide your
members. Im not saying you have to be any expert, that
is one of the reason why people start clubs , to shear ideas
and knowledge, but some knowledge may help you out

2: Are there similar clubs out there ?

Use some time, search on Deviantart and map out if
there are any other clubs out there that already have
your subject. Im not saying you can't create a club
because someone already have , but sometimes
you find clubs that are well organized and have
been around for years ! Then there may be harder to
draw attention at your own club. People tends to choose
clubs that are well known and often people looks at the
pageview to decide if they want to join. But don't loose
hope! A small alteration may be enough to stick out from
the crowd. Therefore it's important to look around and see
what's already there and get some ideas on how you
can make your club a little different.

3. Time

There are no shortcuts , a club takes up time of your day.
It's your own choice on how much you want to dedicate on
your club. But it's well known that hard work pays off in the
end In the beginning you may use extra time. You are
insecure on how things are working. But after a while you
learn different techniques and things are done faster

When running =pspthemes I tend to visit the club at least
two times a day. Using like 15 to 30 minutes on solving issues
like answering notes or reply comments. I uses the time to relax
from my studies I may also use longer time, especially when I
create a contest etc.

The final steps

After you have done the pre-preperations and it's all OK , it's time
to actually create your club!

The beginning is the same as when you started your account when you
joined DA. If you are not a member of DA i suggest you sign up Just follow
the instruction after you click the "become a deviant".

The name

A milestone in the creation process! What are you going t call your
club ? It's not easy to decide! And even here it may be smart to do some
pre-investigation and search DA to see what people have called their club.
You may get some ideas and at the same time avoid using similar name as
another club

A good advice is to create a name so that people easily remembers what
your club is all about ! My club is called PSPthemes and thats what we do
makes psp wallpapers It doesn't need to be to hard.

Finally !! After finishing the subscription phase you have arrived to the grand finale!

Your club is born .. ah ... isn't s she cute ... *gaga gogo* ..
well snap back to reality !!!!

The work has just started!

Part II
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How to run your newly made club

Pimp your Club !

It's important to put some love in pimping up the Club site.!

The avatar
Make an avatar for your club so that people can put it in their journals etc.
The avatar also draws attention to your newly made club

_{Nb: The picture that are becoming your avatar has to be 50x50 pixels big.}

Journal

I strongly advice people who are planing to create a great club , to get the
club a subscription ! Not only because the sub has more functions , but also
because you may use CSS codes in your journal ! yepp , thats right !
So if you want to draw extra attention make , or get someone to make, a
fancy CSS journal

But what should I write in my Journal ?
- It's not a straight forward answer to that my friend. But it may be natural to
write about anything that may be useful for your club, like announcing contests,
new members, affiliates etc. Be creative, but still think about that people are going
to read what you write !

Club ID

You may have noticed that people have their own ID picture under their Journal.
You may also make one for your club! At =pspthemes I simply made a contest
about it People got to vote for their favorite and the club got an ID ! Contests keeps
people interested and on alert. In that way they will visit your club more often!
But it may be expensive to run contest , especially if you are sponsoring a subscription
to the winner !

after pimping out your club it's time to mark the club on the big map of DA !

Be discovered !

For someone to join your club you must steel their attention! Not all will just
stumble buy and join. It takes some work to make people interested enough to join!
The pimping is a good start , but it's no good if there are no people watching you.

So go out there comment art and be active ! It may also help if you
have a signature that advertise for your newly made club

Make members put a link in their signature too . In that way the word spreads
around faster

You may also have noticed that some club have icons of other clubs in their journal.
That is called affiliations. To affiliate with someone you often just send them a note
and ask for affiliation. What this does , is that you put up their icon in your journal
and they put up yours ! Pretty clever and it helps people notice your club

Getting admins

After a while you may get stuck with a lot of work ! Submission to post and questions
to answer. Therefore it may be smart to get a hold of some admins

But don't jump on the first member you see! take some time , observe people.
Members that are doing a lot for the club and submits picture regular shows that
they have more than medium interest for your club. That may be a positive criteria
if you are looking for admins. If you just pick someone randomly , you may get stuck
with someone that won't do their job as admin!

Use your admins for work such as : Submission art , answer questions and recruit
members ! But don't let em do all of your work, you are still the founder and must
be a part of the club !

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Thats it !

I wish you good luck and I'm hoping this article will make the start a little easier It's not all you may do with your club , so be creative !

This article is reflecting my experience with running a club. So people may have their own opinions regarding how to start and run a club. Thats just fine

It would be great if people could write their opinions about this in their comments Cause you never stop learning !

If you still have some question to ask me , please post em in your comment or send me a note

Cheers from =mangatobbey