Community Meetings
To set up a community project you need to have meetings to discuss how it is to be delivered and once its set up how its to be managed and maintained. In the previous section we described how to go about
Promote The Project To Your Neighbours, in the next section, we'll discuss issues relating to setting up a
Community Backgreen Association. Here we want to point out some practical issues relating to holding community meetings.
Check List For Organising Community MeetingsAs the organiser/s of the meeting you will need to do all the preparation for it, in the future (all going well) the responsibilities can be shared around. Here's a checklist of the things you'll need to do to organise a meeting.
Where and When To Hold Your MeetingYou have the advantage of knowing where everybody you want to come to the meeting lives. It is perhaps best for a first meeting if you can have it is a local hall, or perhaps in one of the backgreens if you think that the weather will be good. After the first meeting you will have a better idea of how many folk will turn up and can perhaps hold meetings in peoples flats.
Evenings or weekends are best, look out not to clash with holidays, sporting events etc. The meeting could go on for a couple of hours so a 6.30pm to 7pm start on the weekdays is a good time. Be sure and let folk know that its better to come along for 5 minutes than not at all.
Invite A SpeakerIf it is your first meeting about setting up a community backgreen project, we recommend inviting a speaker who has had experience of setting up a project and can talk about it and answer questions. If you already have one this could be your
Community Backgreen Mentor.
Prepare An Agenda You will need to set out an Agenda for the meeting. It can be really simple, its just a thing of thinking what issues you would like to see covered and setting a times to them e.g. for a first meeting you might have:-
| 6.30 |
Folk arrive, coffee & biscuits. |
| 6.40 - 6.50pm |
Welcome and Quick Overview of Purpose of Meeting - (By You!). |
| 6.50 - 7pm |
Everyone does quick introduction about themselves and their interest in the project. |
| 7 - 7.20pm |
Presentation by representative from ECBA about community backgreen model, with opportunities for questions |
| 7.20 - 7.40pm |
Structured discussion about peoples aspirations and concerns. |
| 7.40 - 7.50pm |
Discussion of possible next steps |
| 7.50 - 8pm |
Finish Meeting |
The Agenda should also have details of the location, date and time of the meeting, along with your contact information. You will want to send out the Agenda of the meeting along with the invite for folk to attend.
Invite FolkOnce you've settled on a venue and a time, you will need to let everyone know. We discussed how to
Promote Your Project in the previous section, by now you should have a lot of phone numbers and email addresses. At this stage you might want to set up a
Community Website so that you can email folk to tell them about the meeting and invite them to join the website at the same time.
Chairing The MeetingAs the person taking the lead, it'll be your responsibility to 'chair' the meeting. In simplest terms its your role to make sure that you get through the Agenda in the time set.
If folk talk for too long, you will need to politely say that 'we have a lot to get through, so we'll need to move on' or something similarly diplomatic. Its useful to say at the start of the meeting that you'll be acting as Chair so please don't be offended if you have to cut someone short on a long discourse.