Facilitation of meetings

“Facilitating” means to make an action or process easier. Here are a few guidelines and tips to help you facilitate your first affinity group meeting.

Location

Try to find a location that offers privacy. This may be your home, but if you are not comfortable with that, look for a nearby or central park, or you can see if there are community organisations that offer spaces for meetings.

Make sure the location you choose offers comfort from any potential weather conditions, as well as bathrooms.

Please keep accessibility in mind. Disabled people need to have access to buildings just as able bodied people do.

Try to find a location that is close to public transport options for those that do not drive. The option of carpooling should be chosen as often as possible.

Online meetings

With interstate and international groups/campaigns, online meetings may be the only option. Look into different platforms for hosting online meetings like Zoom and jitsi. A lot of the following information is relevant for hosting online meetings.

Atmosphere

D.A.M members have found that asking attendees to each bring a plate of food or a drink to share is a great way to establish a sense of community. It can also offer insight in to the background, preferences and lifestyle choices of your affinity group members. Bringing food to share also helps keep cost down for the facilitator of the meeting. Bringing food/drink/plates etc. to share should not be a requirement, however. Keep in mind that not everyone can afford to buy extra food to bring for events or larger groups of people. Be sure to check with attendees about food allergies and diet preferences.

Keep things like sensory issues in mind and do not have loud music or flashing lights etc.

If you have pets, check in with attendees beforehand to let them know and check if anyone has fears or allergies (or if attendees will politely demand to see your cat/dog/pet).

General tips

Try to relax. You may be meeting with mostly known and trusted friends or with a mix of friends and relatively unknown people. Either way, the fact that you are facilitating a meeting to set in motion nonviolent direct action or another form of activism speaks highly of your character and dedication. Be confident and know that this is a casual thing. It begins with discussions and getting to know one another.

Although it may not be of particular concern during the first meeting, you need to consider a process for collecting phones and other devices before meetings for security purposes, if you will be dealing with sensitive and/or private information. Ask members to turn their device(s) off and have someone collect them and place them as far away as possible without risking loss or damage.

Meeting structure

-          Make sure you have a clear objective/purpose and an expectation of what the outcomes may be for the meeting. Too many meetings get sidetracked, and having a clearly outlined objective can help minimize the risk of this happening.

-          Agree on set times for each topic for discussion. Have someone keep track of the time spent on each topic and alert the group when they are nearing the limit for each topic. This will further help to keep meetings on track and not allow them to drag out unnecessarily.

-          Make sure all group members get their chance to speak about each topic. Don’t let a few members dominate discussions.

-          As you have more frequent meetings and discussions, you may find that certain topics always end up in an endless ‘back and forth.’ If these topics come up, it may be a good idea for the facilitator to close that topic and move on to the next one.

-          If a specific discussion has the group ‘stuck,’ you may need to “park” that discussion for another time. It may be later in the meeting or it may need to be left for a separate meeting.

-          Ask someone to scribe, or take notes, for the meeting. This becomes a security issue at times, so you may need to set up a process for dealing with notes after meetings. You can deliver notes through a secure method and destroy any ‘paper trail,’ but the group will need to sort out how you want to handle this.

-          Members’ feelings should not be dismissed, but meetings are best left to strict boundaries so that ‘business’ can be taken care of. If your meetings are long and draining, attendance may drop and then the activity level may drop as a result. You may find that scheduling separate times to ‘debrief’ serve your group well. It is important to have space and time to process emotions.

-          Before moving on to new topics, makes sure the group has reached consensus on the current topic, and recap as you go to make sure everyone follows the progress of decision making. (If you have “parked” a discussion this is not applicable)

-          You can also do a recap at the end to make sure all matters are settled, aside from any discussions that have been “parked.”

-          Have fun and treat ‘mistakes’ as what they actually are – opportunities to learn and improve. We all make them; it’s what we do afterward that really counts.

Roles for affinity group members

Whether your AG has a hierarchal structure or a decentralised structure (or a mix), there are some formal roles or positions that are routinely needed/beneficial, primarily during meetings or when your AG is involved in a larger campaign and having to liaise with other AG’s and activists. A given affinity group may have all, some or none of these roles. They may be permanent or temporary and the group may opt to take turns in these roles, instead of having fixed roles assigned to people.

Spoke

The individual charged with representing the AG at a spokes-council or cluster meeting. Occasionally, the spoke will be granted a more general ambassadorial role by the AG.

Facilitator

A person or people who perform facilitation duties in consensus process of the group and also, to varying degrees, act as a dispute settler when internal conflicts arise, which is inevitable and a common part of being involved with an affinity group. (This may be slightly different to the role of facilitating training sessions or larger campaign meetings. The facilitator at an AG meeting needs to be able to get involved in the discussions)

Media contact

An individual who represents the group to the mass media. The group should discuss this role as it is important the media contact is reliable and “presentable” according to the general public. If you want to get support, it will help to be marketable and relatable. This role is important for groups and for larger campaigns.

Vibe watch

A person or people charged with monitoring the mood and feeling of the group. The reference is to vibrations in the colloquial emotional sense. In some Affinity groups, the vibe watch is also charged with keeping the facilitator from using their role to favour any position or proposal.

Snap-decision facilitator

Also called "quick decision facilitator", this is a person charged with making decisions for the group in time-constrained or high-pressure situations. The position is rare and is almost always temporary.

Spokes-council

When you are involved with a larger or long-term campaign, you may work with multiple affinity groups. When this occurs, a spokes-council may form. This forms when each affinity group elects a representative to attend spokes-council meetings and communicate on behalf of their affinity group. This allows the network, or cluster, of affinity groups to communicate efficiently and coordinate with each other. Examples of different types of affinity groups are: legal support groups, medical/first aid support groups, banner/sign/creative groups, arrestable groups and so on.

*It is important to note that membership of an AG can change frequently and abruptly, which is why communication is important to help prevent issues arising, and also why security protocol is so important considering someone may leave the AG abruptly and without notice.