E or A? Why Not Both? (Part 1)

In this blog post, the first of two blogs on uniting the "Es" and the "As", I'll discuss how I first came about this problem, and then came upon a clear, very beneficial solution.
When I first started leading effective altruist modules at my school's Amnesty International club, I had a mixed bag of kids at my school to bring into the club or to bring back into it. Just like with countless cross country teams I've been apart of, no matter how many or few trophies you won last year, each year is a completely clean slate- you have to start all over again.
Sure, we had had the club at my school for a long time, but I was worried that at the end of last year, interest in the club was dwindling. It was nothing personal against me or previous club leaders, as it certainly wasn't one or a few people's faults. However, there was in general a disconnect in the school, a kind of division. The few kids who showed up to the meetings could be classified as "A"- altruists. They were the idealists, and this idealism made the rest of the school roll their eyes, because the other kids were wondering when the idealists would finally come back down to Earth and be realistic.
Those who at that time rolled their eyes could be classified as "E"- effective. By now, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this- the two groups needed common ground in order to truly be effective altruists.
As the new club director, I had to expand the club, and being more divisive would only repel kids from it and make it smaller. Having just become aware of the importance of effective altruism earlier in 2013, I knew that there was an easy answer to this problem- I needed to make the club more EA.
I remember the moment I started having a club meeting when one of my running teammates said something like, "Oh, Amnesty. All that bleeding-heart idealistic stuff."
"Well, this year, we're looking into effective altruism. We're using rationality and evidence to back our decisions in making the world a better place," I had to respond.
Believe it or not, that got him to join the club, and he is arguably one of its most active members now. To me, that is honestly one of the greatest success stories of my short, 18-year-old life. The club was certainly expanding, and I couldn't have been happier. I was creating something unique- an EA club in a small high school in the little state of Delaware, of all places.
In my next blog post, I'll talk about how to determine whether the people in your life are more inclined to be "E" or "A", and how this is important as a starting point in introducing effective altruism to them.