[ssf] HELP! - Planning the 17th

[Chris Malins]

I'll suggest a structure for the meeting, but I'm away for the weekend 
and on Tuesday evening and busy Wednesday evening and maybe Monday, so 
might struggle to meet people.

I'd suggest that we start the meeting with everyone sat down together to 
hear brief intros from each campaign. I personally believe that these 
should be kept rigorously short, perhaps only 2 minutes each, as we'll 
still easily go 20 minutes or more that way if there are several causes 
represented, and I don't think that will be the most productive part of 
the meeting. After this I would suggest that we split the group into 
maybe four sections by topic, with some swift chair rearrangements by a 
few fleet footed volunteers. Each of those sessions should have a 
pre-ordained facilitator, preferably who is willing to engage very 
little in the discussion, and who will enforce rigorously timekeeping, 
and try to prevent discussions from going in circles. All comments 
should be addressed through the facilitator, with the content of the 
session hopefully driven by one or more representatives of the specific 
campaign in question rather than the facilitator. After maybe 30 mins of 
this, I would suggest a tea and nibbles break, which will be about an 
hour in to the meeting as a whole, which should be a good opportunity to 
mingle. Maybe half an hour for this, followed by a second division into 
groups which we should try to use as the prime time to engage those in 
attendance we don't know in debate, and the individuals already involved 
in campaigns might hopefully take a back seat. I think we should 
encourage and lay out seats so as to make possible free movement between 
groups at this point, and set aside a space for non-facilitated 
discussions for individuals who would like to further develop ideas with 
each other. Bring it all back with a summary of the topics and hopefully 
a set of ideas to take forward, which someone who is not facilitating a 
group should compile in the last five minutes or so of the group session 
with the help of group facilitators.

Go to pub.

Lantern making and other creativity focussed activity may not fit this 
model perfectly, individual structure should be suggested by relevant 
people.

This model is intended to take ~2h15mins, which I think is an 
appropriate time for the body of the meeting. After this I would suggest 
more tea and nibbles and continued creativity would be an alternative to 
immediate adjournment to the pub.

Chris



Dan wrote:
> Allo,
> 
> Would anyone fancy having a brief meet-up to plan exactly *how* the 17th 
> meet will work?  I said I'd come up with something myself - but these 
> things are definitely always better when there's more than one brain 
> thinking about it.
> 
> Anyone?  Could do lunchtime, evening or weekend...
> 
> Dan
>