Meetings

In the spirit of the ambition for a new kind of party, meetings should set the standard for your local group, with a culture of popular democracy, mass engagement, and transparency - avoiding becoming cliquey or insular. 

Build the agenda together

The point of a meeting is to serve its participants—so democratically organise it! Here are different points in time where you could do this:

1. Call for agenda items before the meeting, so that important points of discussion or decision don't get missed.
2. You could circulate a draft agenda in an editable or comment-only Google doc, and incorporate the feedback.
3. You could also circulate the final meeting agenda, so that participants can prepare and aren't surprised in the meeting.
4. At the start of a smaller meet, you could do a quick go-round and confirm what everyone wants to discuss. This is particularly useful if an agenda hasn't been prepared in advance.
5. During the meeting, participants and facilitators can obviously choose to do something different with their time if it's useful!

Collectively run the meeting

Assign partipcants roles, so that the meeting runs smoothly and effectively and no one gets too stressed out. Here are some suggested roles, but you can absolutely make up your own ones too:

• Chair or facilitator: Facilitates and mediates contributions across the floor, keeping the meeting on topic and to time.
• Co-chair or co-facilitator: useful to focus on different responsibilities, gaining a second opinion and particularly helpful if your meeting is hybrid where online participants may be overlooked or forgotten about. You could also have a co-chair for each topic.
• Note-taker: to take minutes and record actions. Minutes could be verbatim, and/or a summary of each person's points, and/or a summary of the discussion as a whole.
• Similarly, flipboard note-taker: to capture key ideas / perspectives / questions from the group that are visible to everyone during the meeting
• Roving assistant: general role for example roving mic, collating written questions etc.
• Tellor: to count votes in the room
• Greeter: to greet and register attendees

Make sure the right people turn up

Advertise the meeting well in advance to all the people it involves.

Practice good democratic conduct

This is every member's responsibility, and facilitators should feel confident to step in and remind people of that.

Ensure everyone can input

All participants should be able to offer their perspective and make an argument for a course of action.

• In smaller meetings, a go-round is a good tactic.
• In larger meetings, consider break-out groups that report back to the full meeting.

Don't use jargon

Acronyms, assumed knowledge of history and far left gossip are not helpful to a mass organisation.

Say your political affiliations

Be honest and transparent. Take responsibility for your group, it's track record and positions.

Decide how to decide upfront

See decision making for more information.

Document the meeting

• Record useful factual input, key themes and perspectives during discussions, any decisions made and action points.
• Share the notes to the people who couldn't make it, for example because of emergencies, poor health, work shift patterns, caring responsibilities or curfews.
• Apply a consistent approach to who can access old notes. Default to all members except in cases of personally sensitive information.

Scheduling meetings

Pick a good rhythm

Whilst meetings can be energising and exciting, this is often not the case. Excessive numbers of meetings can lead to meeting fatigue which will reduce attendance.

Aim to meet regularly enough to make decisions together (for example, monthly) whilst also allowing time in between for other activities. For example:

• Neighbourhood meetings
• Political education activities
• Outreach activities like stalls and grievance canvassing

Pick a good time

You can't assume what works for you will work for everyone else.

Consider creating a poll on WhatsApp to quickly get a sense of what works for everyone.

In person, hybrid or online?

Finding a venue

You could approach third parties to assist who may have access to facilities (eg. trades council, a local Transformed group, union branch - especially those with access to spaces in colleges or universities etc). 

Some may view that the new party should be independent of any third parties being involved; others may view this as a pragmatic way to convene what is essentially a group of interested activists. Be mindful that some third parties may be supportive but may have affiliations eg. Labour which could create conflict of interests.

Accessibility

Making meetings accessible to as many people as possible is a key part of building a democratic party.

Hybrid considerations:

• Hybrid meetings will facilitate wider participation, giving greater flexibility for anyone unable to attend in person for any reason.
• A well chaired meeting reduces the likelihood of people speaking over each other allowing people to assimilate and process information that's discussed.
• If you have a hybrid meeting, enable live captions and have those on a screen in the physical meeting.
• When speaking, be clear and make eye or camera contact to ensure your lips can be read.

Physical accessibility:

• Check that venues are actually physically accessible, including the toilet facilities - don't make assumptions. Some venues will say they are accessible but a lift might be out of order, or there's a need for a manual ramp.
• Pick a venue that is quiet and inclusive - avoid busy or noisy places like pubs.
• Listen to members for convenient times for meetings - many will have caring responsibilities and there's a balance to avoid school pick up times, meal times and bed times.
• In the invitation, reassure people about accessibility provisions and a way to request reasonable adjustments. Read this more detailed guide for more information.

Childcare:

• Provision of childcare facilities at or nearby the meeting, but this may cost money.
• Choose family friendly venues e.g. avoid places that serve alcohol like pubs.
• Only the adults responsible for their children should take them to the bathroom — never a volunteer.

Quick tips

• ✅ Encourage debate and discussion
• ✅ Direct enthusiasm and energy to worthwhile goals
• ✅ Focus on preparation for conference
• ✅ Make the most of the time - make it worthwhile
• ✅ Follow standard meeting rules - for example, Robert's Rules
• ✅ Encourage non-men to be invited to speak first
• ✅ Form breakout groups so everyone can contribute
• ✅ Explain jargon and acronyms
• ✅ Consider action groups between meetings to discuss points in more depth
• ❌ No guest speakers that don't add to the wider debate
• ❌ No repeat contributions dominated by the same persons
• ❌ Don't speak for too long