Inklings
"Properly speaking," wrote Warren Lewis, "the Inklings was neither a club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both. There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections." As was typical for university literary groups in their time and place, the Inklings were all male. 
Readings and discussions of the members' unfinished works were the principal purposes of meetings. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", Lewis's "Out of the Silent Planet", and Williams's "All Hallows' Eve" were among the novels first read to the Inklings. Tolkien's fictional Notion Club (see "Sauron Defeated") was based on the Inklings. Meetings were not all serious; the Inklings amused themselves by having competitions to see who could read the notoriously bad prose of Amanda McKittrick Ros for the longest without laughing.
Niekas
Meskys later wrote, "I started a separate mailing-comments zine for the APA, and changed its name to "Niekas" and started the numbering over again with the June 1962 issue... Since there was no Tolkien fanzine being published I decided to devote "Niekas" to Tolkien and try to run at least one Tolkien related piece in each issue." The fanzine played a prominent role in the early development of Tolkien fandom in the United States. Issue #7 included a letter from C. S. Lewis to Meskys that mentions "The Lord of the Rings".