Meeting Facilitation: I swear by the Neighborhood Anarchist Collective meeting facilitation guide Link.

Some comments on meeting facilitation:

• ALWAYS have an agenda ready, and send it out ahead of time.
• If people have an item that they would like to put on the agenda, try to make sure that they submit it to you ahead of time and that they actually prepare what they’d like to share and what their proposal is.
• Assign the approximate amount of time that an item will take. Always assume that the items will take longer than expected. If you put that an item will take 10 minutes, expect it to take 15.
• Assign one person as facilitator, one as minute taker, and one as time keeper. If there are a lot of people (more than 5) at a meeting, might also be good to have a separate person take stack, or have the time keeper do so. Ask for a facilitator for the next meeting in the beginning (if needed)
• In my experience, the only hand signals that are used besides raising a hand to get on stack are “direct response” and “up twinkles” if you really like what someone shared. Usually I’ll assign a facilitator, minute taker, and time keeper.

Agenda Writing Tips: I’ll just type out very roughly how I do mine. Usually the minute taker will go into the agenda during the meeting and add their minutes to it during the meeting.

AGENDA TITLE AGENDA DATE

Present: names of all attendees present

• Facilitator: name
• Minute Taker: name
• Time Keeper: name
• Next week’s Facilitator: name

Check Ins/Icebreaker question

Check Backs (updates on projects in progress or other significant updates from people’s work)

Announcements: Announce events, new members, or whatever it is that doesn’t warrant a discussion necessarily

Agenda:

• Agenda Item 1 (name of person bringing item): Brief summary of the item

• Agenda Item 2 (name of person bringing item): Brief summary of the item

• Agenda Item 3 (name of person bringing item): Brief summary of the item

Getting People Involved/Getting them to read minutes: This is going to be the toughest thing to do, imo. During meetings if no one is choosing to get involved in discussions, I will usually start calling on people, especially if there are one or two people who are dominating the conversation. If no one volunteers to take minutes, time keep, etc. I will let them know that I will assign roles if people don’t volunteer. Outside of meetings, sometimes I will be as direct as asking people individually if they will be attending the next meeting. If you can, schedule your meeting at the same time every week/month/etc. Being predictable makes it way easier. As for reading minutes and the agenda ahead of time, I think sending it once like a week ahead of time and then again the day before as a reminder may be helpful. Or if you have a group signal chat, send a reminder message. A lot of people are pretty passive in my experience, so you’ve got to do a lot of directing and hand holding which can be frustrating, especially in the beginning. But once people become more comfortable in meetings and get used to the flow and the other people present, some will start to participate more.