There are many aspects of organization: people, meeting place, timing, agenda, communication etc.

People
A thinking club consists of exactly six people. These are the members. There may be a smaller number of associates who attend the meetings but are not full members. If one of the full members does not attend the meetings on a regular basis then his place is taken by an associate (a member should attend at least three-quarters of the meetings). When there are enough associates a separate thinking club of six can form. There may be temporary states - for example, when the club is starting- when there are fewer than six members. The number six is chosen because it is best for the practice of thinking skills. The six can work as a group of six or split into two groups of three.

Organizer and host: The organizer has overall responsibility for the meeting and acts as host as well. It is up to the organizer to see that the meeting takes place and to control what happens during the meeting. The organizer should be an effective and competent person who is also good at getting on with people. Someone with charm but no competence is not much good for this role. The organizer may delegate the following roles: timekeeper, note-taker and communicator. The same organizer should continue throughout the life of the club. It is best not to rotate this position. If another member really wants to become the organizer - and shows enough competence - then there could be a change of organizer on a six-monthly basis. But the role should not be rotated amongst other members who are neither willing nor capable of doing it. There should always be a back-up organizer in case the organizer is ill or unable to attend a meeting.

Timekeeper: This is an important role because the timekeeper has to be accurate and ruthless. The meeting must start on time and end exactly on time - even if that means stopping in the middle of something interesting. The timekeeper also keeps the time for each practice item. Many digital watches have stopwatch functions. Sloppiness in time keeping soon leads to general sloppiness and lack of focus.

Note-taker: The note-taker's task is to produce a summary report of each meeting for the logbook. There is a great deal of skill involved in putting things succinctly and yet in a way which captures the essence of what has been said. The summary should be between three and five hundred worlds.

Communicator: It is the role of the communicator to remind members of the next meeting and to be sure they let him know in good time if they are unable to attend.

Meeting place
The ideal meeting place is a home. A pub lacks the necessary formality. The meeting place should always be at the same place and the meeting held at the same time. It is not a good idea to rotate the meeting place. A back-up place should be considered in case the main place is not available on any occasion.

Frequency
The best frequency is once fortnight. Once a week is too often and once a month too infrequent. The dates should be fixed in advance and should be on a predictable basis (for example, the first and third Monday in each month). Trying to arrange dates to suit everyone is an impossibility. Allowances will need to be made for holiday seasons.

Duration
The first four meetings should not last longer than one hour each. The next four should last for one and a half hours. After that the meeting can last two hours. At the end of the set time the meeting should be terminated even if the members linger on for social reasons. It is often a temptation to continue with the thinking and discussion if these are going well. That is a mistake to be avoided because it shifts the emphasis from the exercise of thinking skills to 'finding solutions' and changes the nature of the meetings.

Logbook
Each thinking club should have a logbook which carries a report on each meeting. This would give the time, place and people present. It would also give the 'agenda' and a summary of the thinking that took place.

Content
In order to provide some uniform baseline of attitudes towards thinking, it is assumed that all members of the thinking club will have read a copy of this book. This makes it possible to refer to the various processes used in this book without having to explain them all again in detail.

Agendas for two trial meetings are provided here.

Two things are important as regards the content of the meetings. The first thing is that at the beginning the emphasis needs to be directly and exclusively on practice and development of the basic thinking skills. There is a great temptation to try to do too much at first. This usually results in an argument type of discussion and a certain pointlessness which destroy the idiom of the meetings. The second thing is the need - always - to keep a balance between serious subjects and fun subjects. People tend to expect thinking to be 'serious' and 'heavy' but that is also a mistake. Far better practice is obtained on remote or fun subjects than on serious subjects, for on the serious subjects people just trot out their prejudices and stereotypes instead of thinking. Confidence in thinking needs to be built up on other matters first. The ratio between fun and serious subjects should be at least equal and preferably three to one in favour of the fun subjects (at least at first).