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Community Organizing Tool #2: Effective Meetings

After building relationships, you want to get people together for meetings to talk about what to do about the issue you have. Here are 4 important elements of effective meetings:

Meeting With Yourself: to gain clarity with yourself about how the meeting will run

Pre-Meeting : between the key people like the chair person and other leaders (3 to 4 people) to discuss things like:

• who should be at the meeting and who will reach out to invite them

• what the agenda would look like • who will speak on any updates- give roles

This needs to happen so that the meeting goes smoothly

The Meeting: clear focus and purpose

start on time, end on time

This publication is supported in part by a cooperative agreement from the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Administration for Community Living, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Grantees undertaking projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities policy.” The Self Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center (SARTAC) seeks to strengthen the self-advocacy movement by supporting self advocacy organizations to grow in diversity and leadership. The resource center is a project of Self Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE), the oldest national self-advocacy organization in the country. SARTAC is a Developmental Disabilities Project of National Significance, funded by the Administration For Community Living – Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AIDD). The information in this manual was written to provide guidance for self Advocates and their allies to assist in understanding policy issues affecting their lives. It is not to be used to determine a person's legal rights or an organization's legal responsibilities under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended; the Americans with Disability Act of 1990, as amended or any other federal, state or local laws written to protect the rights of people with disabilities. By Marie Malinowski with thanks to the Self Advocacy Association of NYS, Gamaliel, and VOICE Buffalo

Contact: marie@voicebuffalo.org 716-560-9307

The Meeting: clear focus and purpose (cont.)

printed agenda or you can write it on the board

roles clearly defined

keep people on track: contain arguments and distracting topics move toward a decision and commitment

Evaluation: -one word feeling like: good, productive, unclear, full, fuzzy, etc. -performance: how did the person running the meeting do? how did the people who had rolls do?

-any tension- for example if something felt tense or bothered someone, talk about anything that doesn’t sit right with you.