http://vimeo.com/mohawkmedia/lopo 

The League of Pragmatic Optimists (LOPO) is a meeting place in cities and towns across the globe where people who want to make the world better can meet, generate ideas and projects, get inspiration and a recharge, find collaborators and have their neurons tickled in the cause of improving the story of humanity. Another way of looking at it is as an exercise in ‘engineered serendipity’ – a mechanism for diverse people and ideas to bump into each other and create (and deliver) projects that aim to improve things. Local chapters meet at regular intervals to free themselves from day-to-day organisational or mental silos, and network in an inspiring atmosphere of do-ers. Eight core principles

• An unashamed optimism of ambition about the future
• A pragmatic focus. Chapters meet to help people do, not just talk. (Or, if you’re a mouth on legs, you probably won’t be invited back)
• Members involve themselves in projects that are ‘bigger than me’
• There is a strong belief that ideas become more powerful when they are shared, not protected
• Your stories and opinions are nice, but your evidence is better
• Making mistakes is OK, but not trying is irresponsible
• Members strive to police their own cynicism, and keep it in check
• LOPO is a-political. All stripes are welcome but don’t come to promote your stripes

+ one (loosely enforced) ‘rule’: You cannot leave a LOPO meeting without adding at least one item to your ‘to-do’ list – and your ticket into the next meeting is that list with at least one task crossed off. Where are we today The LOPO subscriber list is growing daily and chapters are ready to be set up across the globe (e.g. New York, Boston, Sydney, Singapore, Madrid etc). Where we want to go We aim to have a chapter of LOPO in every city and major town on the planet. Our priority in the next 18-24 months is to grow the network both online and physically to create critical mass, providing tools for people to set up chapters, attract members, organise meetings and events, make partnerships, kick-off and deliver projects. Want to help us? Thought you did.