Starting a Pokemon group in my city - any suggestions?

[deity307]

Hey guys, I'm running a Pokemon group in my city, Toronto. It's a place for all Pokefans to unite and play Pokemon games together (card games, video games), and watch the Anime too.

But I'm having problems finding members to join. I have the group on Meetup.com and Facebook, but I hardly have any members. After going to the big annual convention in my city, I KNOW there's a lot of Pokemon fans out there.

I suppose my question is, where would I find Pokemon fans in the city? I would like to promote and tell them my group, and get them to come out. I was thinking of looking around:

-Card shops
-Hobby stores
-Raves (surprisingly, a lot of ravers love Pokemon)
-Any events that involve Anime (a lot of people love the Pokemon anime)

Any other places I should try?

 

[Taemin]

Totally sticking this in Pokemon General, since it definitely doesn't belong in the fanclub area.

It's not technically not advertising, and has some legit questions, so do with it what you want Miss Doronjo.~

 

[Kenshin5]

I dunno if parents would want their children being in a Club with Ravers. Maybe try and promote yourself on Social Networking sites. You may contact pokemon if you can find a way to contact and inquire of them trying to set up a club in Toronto and see if they give you any backing on setting one up. I don't know what stores they have that do events like download pokemon i.e. Arceus, Shiny Pichu, etc but if they have an event like that you could go to one and see if anyone interested in joining.

 

[Cherrim]

I think the cons would be the best ways. :/ Maybe print up some business card-type things and if you see any fans at Anime North or Fan Expo, give 'em a card. The only issue I see is, Toronto is pretty big and for cons, a lot of people travel from the suburbs or farther so they wouldn't be available as readily for weekly or monthly meetups.

But definitely check out local hobby/card shops and ask the owners if you could put up maybe a sign in the window or by the register to advertise it. And make sure the meetup would be in a sufficiently public place or it'd probably just seem fishy.