Citizen Works - Tools for Organizing

Organizing your first campus-wide meeting

Your first campus-wide meeting should be planned far enough in advance to wallpaper the school with flyers and send an announcement to all available campus media. Furthermore, the agenda should be planned out to the minute and the meeting should be well facilitated. (For suggestions on running effective meetings, see Appendix A of this manual.) You should read a proposed mission statement or platform, then discuss, amend, and adopt a platform; and read over possible events or campaigns for the semester and either vote on one of them or set up committees to research them and propose other ideas. Kick-off meetings are also a great time to bring in a guest speaker - often a well-liked progressive professor will bring more people to an event as well as keeping it interesting.

It is very, very important that at your first meeting you quickly explain the role of your group on your campus, briefly discuss that role, and then accomplish something tangible. Do NOT spend your whole first meeting arguing politics or discussing small portions of a platform. If a discussion goes long, you should immediately create a committee to research the problem and report back, and move on.

Every attendee should leave the first meeting with a good understanding of what the group's purpose is, how they will fit into the group, and with confidence that the group is action-oriented. Some key things to do on the first day:

· Adopt a platform, or establish committees to research and draft a platform to be revised and ratified at the next meeting.

· Establish Working Groups on key projects [e.g. further recruitment, fundraising, media stunt, campaign development, etc.]

· Set committee meeting times and times they will check in with the main group.

· Plan a media stunt to announce your presence on campus

· Set a date and time for your next meeting

Make your first meeting fun--provide food, play a game--but make sure that it is much more than a social event. Afterwards, have everyone go to a café or bar to keep talking and facilitate a chance for people to get to know each other. A lot of good potential activists will come back because of someone they met the first night who they would like to see again (for romantic or platonic reasons!).

Remember, organizing is about building relationships.

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