Ground rules about respect and participation are crucial for creating safe democratic spaces, where people feel free to share stories, feel heard and included. Such rules are created collectively, as early as possible in the process of the group formation.

Ground rules may be printed out and displayed at meetings, or printed below the agenda (if the agenda  is printed out and passed around). Another option is to just explain the ground rules at the beginning of the meeting.

Example: LiKEN’s  ground rules or shared values.

STORIES WE SHARE: We want everyone to feel comfortable sharing their own stories, perspectives, and ideas. It’s super important that everyone speaks from their own experiences and that we don’t generalize or speak for others.  

HOW WE LISTEN: Think about a time when you felt really listened to, respected, and uplifted. Or a time you felt the exact opposite. Here, we’ll all work to empower each other’s voices.     

HOW WE INCLUDE: We will be open, kind and loving! We will not tolerate harassment, abuse, and/or discrimination towards any human being on any basis (race, gender, age, ability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religion, etc.)

If someone becomes upset or argumentative during a meeting, see the page on Keeping Safe for ideas on how to bring down the temperature in the room. 

At beginning of meeting, go over any background information that people need during the meeting:

• If it's an in person meeting, explain where bathrooms, snacks, drinks are.

• If it's an online meeting, remind everyone to stay muted when they are not talking. If participants are not used to being in online meetings, explain where to find functions on their screens. 

• Send people a link to where you will be keeping notes during the meeting (if online meeting).

• Always review the agenda & make sure people like it. Give folks a chance to add items or rearrange the order and timing of things.

Before the meeting, make sure to clarify who fills which roles:

• Facilitator (running the meeting smoothly).

• Notetaker (clarify where notes  are to be stored and how they will be shared).

• Timekeeper.

• Stacker (keeping track of who speaks next when several people have their hands raised).

• To do list (e.g., at end of meeting, making sure it’s clear who will be doing any action steps after the meeting). 

FACILITATOR

• Review the agenda at the beginning of the meeting and ask people if anything they want to change or add.  

• Make sure you check in about timing as the meeting goes on:  for example, alert people as you go through agenda items and be clear about any breaks and when the meeting will end.

• Like a good seminar leader, try to keep focus on key issues.  If an issue is not fully formed, try to draw it out more clearly (for example, ask questions - or try to repeat or summarize what people are saying, so that you are distilling and mirroring back to them the important ideas and decisions that are emerging)

• Keep people on topic.

• Be gentle and firm with people who talk too much.  Draw out and encourage people who are quiet.

NOTETAKER: 

It is essential to keep a record of what was discussed and decided, because it is certain that you will forget things, or people may remember what happened differently. Clear, concise, detailed and well-organized notes make it much easier for everyone to keep in the loop. Good documentation is also useful to have on occasions of conflict and helps avoid  confusion in fast-moving projects. 

Yet, note-taking is harder than it seems. A good rule of thumb is to imagine that you suddenly need to leave the group or the project & ask yourself:  “Have I documented everything that other people would need to carry on this work?” 

Here are  some tips for taking good notes:

• Efficiency is important; your notes should quickly convey to your collaborators what they need to know.

• Imagine other people reading your notes who were not in the meeting.  Will they make sense? Consider especially folks who are not familiar with the topic, acronyms, or situation.

• It’s usually easy to take ‘flow of consciousness’ jottings -- and then to go back and write detailed notes. 

• Plan to edit notes right after a meeting, or at least within 24 hours.

  • Be aware of confidentiality issues. Some discussions or names are best left out of notes if they are sensitive.

  • When going over notes, it is best to reorganize them according to topics. Use bolded headers for different topics, so that folks can quickly scan to get the gist of what happened, and a good sense of the outcome of the meeting.  Here are the categories that we recommend to include:

  • Date, main topic & project, names of people attending and location.

  • Key decisions made or meeting outcomes.

  • Next steps or ‘to do’ items resulting from the meeting, and action items to be completed before the next meeting. Highlight this section & use bullets for the ‘to do’ items. Remember to include names of  who is responsible for each item, and dates for their completion (or anything else that is helpful for tracking completion). 

  • Detailed notes of the meeting if needed to track different points of view, how decisions were made, or alternatives to consider. Notes are different from minutes, which usually just document actions and items that have been voted on.

  • Circulate among the facilitating group asking for corrections, and if needed, let people know where notes need to be filled out.

• Communicating outcomes of meetings:  it is very important to make sure that you circulate notes to whoever should be in the loop -- preferably within 24 hours of the meeting

  • As often as you can, THANK PEOPLE FOR THEIR WORK!

TIME KEEPER

• For each agenda item, monitor whether it’s on track to finish in designated time.

• Alert people when getting close to the time limit.  

• When hitting the limit ask if they’d like to extend time for discussion of that item and if so, propose how to rearrange the subsequent agenda items

• Do not let meetings run too late! People get to dread meetings if they are unpredictable in length.

STACKER (this person watches who wants to talk & keeps track of the order in which they should talk. In a small meeting the facilitator may take on this role.)

• Explain the process at the beginning & let people know who is the stacker.

• If the rule is that people should raise their hands if they want to talk, enforce it by kindly interrupting people who are speaking without raising their hands (unless they say that they have a ‘follow on’ question or comment).

• Recognize people in order of hands being raised.

TO DOs (often the Facilitator or Notetaker will take charge of these)

• ACTION STEPS

  • Best to allot 10 minutes or so at the end of the meeting to summarize the ‘to do’ tasks that have emerged in the meeting, and assign tasks to people.

  • Distill action steps from minutes, highlight them and put them at the front of minutes.

• PLANNING NEXT MEETING

  • At the end of the meeting, select who is responsible for what roles in the next meeting (who is going to facilitate, keep notes etc.).

  • Try to lock in time and place for the next meeting (if not recurring) or make that an action step and assign it to one or more group members.