twentysixmoons
commented
8 years ago I think we should also consider short discussions followed by break-out groups.
I've done that previously within an organization(Feminists United) and it got a great response since everyone got presented to for a bit and then we went into smaller groups to further discuss the issues. In the end we came together and recapped a bit on what each group discussed in relation to the topic.
We did this for issues such as racism, classism, privlege, etc. It helped people stay engaged and made us a tighter community.
We did a few things in that group that I really liked and need to probably share.
- We quickly addressed 3 headlines that were related to our cause at the beginning of the session. It was always better if they coresponded with the topic but sometimes it was more about current events.
- We switched it up between breakout groups/ presentations hosted by core team members, curated guest panels, and presentations by outside individuals(We had PPTXV come talk about voting rights, etc ). Also though, these meetings were held weekly so we had a lot more topics to cover and ultimately planning to do. I was on a team of about 7 people.
- At the end of the meeting we had anonymous paper feedback cards that asked what each person liked/ thinks needs adjustments. This helped us gauge how each meeting went and helped us in planning future meetings.
- As a feminist group we were very particular about the use of personal pronouns in intros. I'd like to see that in more spaces but would like to know what the group thinks. Being more cognizant of things like really shows respect for underrepresented and underserved communities. I've heard that the Sass group does that too. It's a really small thing that can make a big difference for people.
I learned a lot with that group and in a semster we grew 3x our orignial size because of better marketing(new logos, social media curation/maintenance,etc ), meeting structure, and overall organization. Let me know what ya'll think about the above and if we can incoporate any of it moving forward.
Let me know if y'all have any questions too. I can maybe dig around and find some old stuff that we used. I think that group took a lot more work since we met weekly but there were 7 people on the team.
mateoclarke
amaliebarras
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