In terms of "special readings" it would probably be "fair use" to play relatively short excepts from the Charleton Griffin reading of Lucretius, so that is one source of special material that would not take a lot of preparation, as we can easily identify especially important passages from Lucretius and listen to him if we don't have time to prepare a version ourselves.
That's an example - what are other options?
What are the possibilities for "special"?
Specially prepared online readings like Kalosyni did last time?
Let's throw out and list some possibilities because it's hard to say where to start.
I think all of us agree that we don't want to tend toward "cultish" in any way, but there ought to be ways to be "inspirational" without being cultish.
Having too many people is a good problem to have - much better than the reverse.
We ought to consider various ways to be sure that everyone gets to participate while at the same time making sure that the time spent is "quality" and we don't get sidetracked or have only a few have time to speak.
I think we found out last night that by having everyone introduce themselves, then say something in closing, and then try to involve everyone in the brief discussion of the principal doctrine, we consumed a full hour just with the eight people who were there.
Maybe one option is to balance Wednesday with the purpose of the Sunday session - (1) make the Sunday session weighted a little more toward "the regulars" discussing the chapter before we open the floor to discussion and (2) weight the Wednesday session more explicitly for question/answer and discussion, with maybe some of all of the topics pre-set so people will know what to expect.
A lot depends on how many people attend, and we probably need to be willing to adjust the format on the spot each night to account for the number of attendees.
According to the Mcgilivray article the texts indicate that inviting people to the 20th was a major way of introducing newer people. IMHO we don't have the luxury or situation to do that only once a month - there is too much lost ground to make up, too many challenges to getting started with regular activities, and at the same time the technology available to us makes the whole thing much easier.
I hope people will throw out any and every idea that comes to them. A key part of the picture is that everyone doesn't need to do everything - I am beginning to get stretched a little thin myself. People can set up new projects with new project leaders at any time. A large part of the purpose of this forum is to make that kind of coordination and assistance easier.
We need ideas for formatting and conducting the meeting (such as agendas, telling people to use the "raise hand" to speak, asking them to type in the chat window, etc......) that will make them more productive.
It's already obvious that we have a time zone issue, and that it would be logical and desirable for there to be geographic groups by continent and over time more local to have the most convenient time for everyone. Today we've got maybe ten people in the world who are available to participate in something like this, but over time the goal (for someone) ought to be meetings like this by time zone, eventually state, region, etc. There doesn't need to be - and shouldn't be eventually - any kind of central planning.
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It is by no means essential or required that you have read these texts before participating in the forum, but your understanding of Epicurus will be much enhanced the more of these you have read.
And time has also indicated to us that if you can find the time to read one book which will best explain classical Epicurean philosophy, as opposed to most modern "eclectic" interpretations of Epicurus, that book is Norman DeWitt's Epicurus And His Philosophy.
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By my count we had eight people - meaning three visitors in addition to our regulars. We spent most of the first half hour just introducing outselves (which should not take so long in the future) and then we spent the rest of the hour discussing principle doctrine one from Nate's compilation.
We need to set up threads for each meeting to be sure we cover any topics that people want to ask about. What else do we need to do to enhance the experience?
Feedback on session one? I thought it was VERY successful - a great start!
Not disruptive at all please join when you can!
Kalosyni thank you for posting that update and especially the link to Nate's list of alternate translations. Have those in front of us when we discuss each one is a very good idea.
thank you isychos - hope to see you
Which is exactly what I was trying to provide in my letter to Menoikeus
Yes exactly. This has to be a team effort and not everyone will be able or inclined to do everything and they shouldn't try.
It will always be beyond the capability or inclination or some to translate the original Greek -- or grow an original Greek philosopher's beard! 
No doubt there is going to be a "shakedown" period where we figure out what works best, but Kalosyni and Scott and Joshua and Martin have been very good about all sorts of suggestions and I think we have a good core to launch this as a new initiative. I hope those who have not attended in the past will consider attending and adding it to their routine. No preparation necessary, no video necessary, no recording -- no pressure of any kind - just an opportunity to "socialize."
Yes the full article speculates that the "missionary" viewpoint expanded over time during the Roman period, and I think correctly. We never will likely want to be shouting at passersby from the street corner, but the world increasingly offers lots of opportunities for us to claim a space in the "marketplace of ideas."
Catherine Wilson is an interesting case as she seems a little more willing to break away from the orthodoxy on Epicurus.
However I don't get the feeling that she is as much an Academic as she is a writer for more general audiences, so maybe she has more flexibility to follow her intuitions.
My take is that she thinks she can push the envelope on Epicurean philosophy toward more popular success (at least in publishing) if she combines it with a good sprinkling of politics to make it sound more relevant to modern audiences. She might be right about that to some extent, but I doubt it will win her much endorsement in Academia. If someone wants to justify their politics through philosophy, most of the Academics realize that it's more efficient to focus on the mainline Platonic-Aristotelian position, where they can rest their desired uniformity of position on "forms" or "ideas" or "essences."
It's really hard to claim eternal significance for a particular set of political ideas when the only things that are eternally the same are things like the size, shape, and weight of the atoms. 
its much easier to claim that one's own views equal "virtue" and that your opponents views are "evil" and the anti-Epicurean philosophies are the home of that approach.
Yes I think Don's explanation is the right one. Even today Epicureanism is not reputable among the academics. A few of them may argue differently (the O'Keefe's etc, who argue the "tranquility" position) but the majority of Academia knows better.
The majority of Academia rightly sees Epicureanism as an individualistic rejection of Platonist uniformity, and they aren't going to finance and support and promote tenure for people to focus on the deeper aspects of what Epicurus taught.
It would be interesting to try to learn more about Macgilivray personally to see what he really thinks himself, but I bet Don's right - if you want a career in Academia you're going to toe the line and not spend too much time on Epicurus.
And if you choose to go down the "tranquility" road then you'll eventually end up in Stoicism, because they have the market on anesthesia and emotional suppression cornered.
He also seems to have gone down an Epictetus/Stoic track after the initial interest in Epicureanism
That is so sad! Both his analysis and his notes seem to me to be of very high quality. This doesn't read like a "student" paper at all, but someone of advanced thinking and capacity who is widely read in the ancient materials.
At some point this paper probably needs to be compared to Nate's list of ancient Epicureans to be sure the list contains the ones MacGilivray references.
Thanks no I did not! I am impressed with his style and cites so will look at that.
Also he says in the first paper that he wrote, but did not publish, a section more directly on Philodemus.
I have not heard of McGil. Otherwise so he might be interesting to look up his other activities.
Notes on this chapter - definition of PEDANT
ped·ant | \ ˈpe-dᵊnt
\
1a: one who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasizes minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge
b: one who makes a show of knowledge
c: a formalist or precisionist in teaching
2obsolete : a male schoolteacher
Here's a part of the Conclusion, that will hopefully encourage more of us to read the bulk of it:
The Epicureans were then no isolationist community living within a garden compound, or a scholastic group content to merely recite philosophical truisms amongst themselves. Rather this was a community that was structured from the
beginning, and with the ideological supports, to have an active concern to include outsiders, and to extend their philosophy beyond their immediate associates. Yet despite such characteristics, the Epicureans were not a community of evangelists or missionaries. The realization that the Epicureans had a strong aversion to the open propagation of philosophy also needs to be informing and pulling upon our understanding. This concern is probably best demonstrated by Epicurus’ frequent refrains on the crowd’s inability to respond correctly to philosophical truths, and his belief on the futility of trying to structure a message to appeal to a mass audience. The following passage probably best expresses this attitude:
[I would rather] reveal the things which are expedient to all mankind, even if no one is going to understand me, than assent to the received opinions and reap the adulation lavishly bestowed by the multitude.
So although the school could show an effort and concern not witnessed in its main rivals to embrace and expedite the development of outsiders/beginners, and it could even on occasion be found pursuing specific individuals to persuade, there was little conception or drive to actively evangelize, or attempt to spike the interest the otherwise uninterested masses with the potency and legitimacy of their message. As with other contemporary philosophical schools it was assumed that if you were to be responsive to the philosophy that you would seek it out50* just as a patient would seek out a doctor, and not the other way around. 51 This explains why the epitomes, which some scholars have designated as also functioning as propaganda material, despite the long preface we are given on their designed use and varied intended audiences, make no hint at their possible use for convincing or introducing the philosophy to those with no prior interest.
Yet the picture is further complicated for scholars wanting a straightforward account of the Epicurean engagement with mission, for as we plotted the Epicurean movement across the generations of the school, and as philosophy moved westwards onto Roman soil, this open*closed dynamic came under pressure. Subsequent generations of Epicureans do not seem to have been merely content with the School’s inclusion/amenability to outsiders; but rather they sought to actively proselytize their message to the commonality of society. The tension that Epicurus was aware of above between holding a message that was expedient for all mankind, but not fashioning it in a way to appeal to the majority of humankind was for some Epicureans strained to breaking point. Though it is hard to exactly judge the motives and circumstances that
prompted the Epicurean popularisers, and further research will be needed to understand and place them within the larger context of the Second Sophistic age; we can though note that given that the abstinence from propagation seems to have been more of a shared cultural agreement amongst the schools, rather than a dogmatically informed opposition in Epicureanism, that we should not be particularly surprised that given appropriate circumstances that this aversion would be liable to degrade. The reasons motivating this change would also probably be reliant upon broad Epicurean cosmopolitanism, and their fundamental concern to include a cross*spectrum of society within their ranks to gain the therapy that their philosophy provided.52 The successful implementation of this desire could, I proposed, be uniquely achieved in Epicureanism because of their philosophy’s focus on dyadic teaching, rather than a more politically focused philosophy, and through the School’s sanctioning and practice of producing epitomes of their philosophy for beginners. However others such as the Epicurean scholar Philodemus demonstrated the continuing observance of the open*closed dynamic in the school, 53 and he frequently critiqued the populists’ efforts to simplify the philosophy into epitomes, and bemoaned their attacks on the value of serious philosophical texts.
Yet the change in Epicureanism to fashion texts that would draw people to their message was not just done through the utilization of brevity. Lucretius’ great didactic poem the De Rerum Natura was explicitly crafted to lure educated Latin speakers through its finessed prose to consider the (at first usually distasteful), message of Epicureanism. Although some scholars have opined that his poem was an anomalousflash of interaction of between Epicureanism and educated Roman society, we found that we could establish a surprisingly large list of Epicurean adherents from the top of Roman society. Epicureanism was part of the general intellectual discourse of the time, and not restricted to a isolated, or peripheral philosophical community. Cicero’s frequent comments on the numeracy of his Epicurean peers, and his numerous recollections at finding them present in friend’s houses, at drinking parties, and hosting philosophical lectures, all testify to the vitality of Epicureanism and its success in positioning itself as a respected intellectual position in elite Rome society at Rome. But more this, the popularity and adherence to Epicureanism amongst the politically and business active Roman elite reveals the ability of Epicureanism to extend its membership beyond operating merely in specifically designed Epicurean communities and to include, as I have argued they had always done, well*disposed and interested members into their midst.
