The MoveOn Council Network

 

Organizing meetings are a great way to make your Council stronger and to plan your upcoming strategy and tactics. They're also a great time to get new folks involved in the Council.  For more tips on running a successful meeting, go to: http://moveon.org/team/organize/meetings.  You can find all the updated materials you need for your organizing meetings on our one-stop-shop, available through your Council page: http://www.moveon.org/team.

Here's a suggested agenda for the Council Organizing Meeting for early January. The goal is to review MO campaign work from 2009, plan your upcoming health care action, and kick-off the January One-to-One Drive.

Welcome and go-round (3 min)

Thanks so much for coming to our council Organizing Meeting.  Since there is quite a bit for us to cover on the agenda, and we definitely want to have time to socialize at the end, I'll be helping to facilitate this conversation so that we have enough time to cover all these topics.

• Give a quick overview of the goals for the meeting, briefly review the agenda and ask for note-taker and time-keeper. (1 min)
• Quickly re-cap your council's recent organizing work. (2 min)

Review current campaign work + debrief most recent action (15 min)

Note to facilitator: Please let participants know that once the health care campaign is over and a final health bill is hopefully passed, we will have more space at local gatherings to debrief at length the entire health care campaign. 

Review national results from current campaign (10 min)

• You can use the national email reportbacks - particularly the "Special MoveOn Council Update" email highlighting our council work in 2009 - that you received to share anecdotes and our national results for our actions. (Click here to see the email - http://www.moveon.org/team/healthcareorganizing/EndOfYearEmail_122809.html)
• Check with your Regional Coordinator or Field Organizer for specific updates
• Ask participants to share their own personal highlights or brief reflections on how the health care campaign is going.  (Be sure to let folks know that we'll have more time later in the agenda to discuss how the health care fight is going in one-to-one conversations).  Some potential discussion questions:
• What is your personal highlight from our health care work in 2009?
• What impact have we had locally on our campaign target(s)?
• What impact has the national MO council network had on this fight?
  

Debrief local action (5 min)

This is a chance for your council to discuss and evaluate your most recent action. Here are some suggested discussion questions:

• What went well with the recent action? What led to our success in organizing a successful event?
• What was especially challenging? How did we overcome each challenge?
• What could have been better? How could we have organized together more effectively?
• As a council, how did we get stronger (more core members? new leaders trained in new skills? did we move up in the council rating system?) This month, how can we continue to strengthen our council and build a stronger core group?
• How can we ensure that we have full participation in the council? Are there any barriers to council members full participation?
• How did working with local coalition partners go, if we did for this action? How can we continue to build local power?

Planning Your Next Action (15 min)

Note to facilitator: We normally allot up to 30 minutes for action planning.  Because the upcoming action is relatively straight-forward and because the One-to-One conversations next in the agenda are so important, you'll need to move quickly through this item.  You can also use this time to delegate specific tasks for this action and ask council members to finish the planning at a later time. Be sure to check the one-stop-shop for the current organizing story and upcoming tactical plan.

Review the Goals and Strategy for early January (7 min)

Ask a council member to share the January organizing story or watch the video linked from the one-stop shop. 

As a group, re-cap the following:

• What is our national goal? (For example, passing a strong clean energy bill or winning health care reform).
• What is our local goal? (For example, we will organize to make sure that Senator X votes for the strong clean energy bill).
• What is our strategy? (For example, we will organize small businesses and health care professionals to meet with our senator to show them the community support for the health care legislation that we're trying to win).

Planning: Nuts and Bolts (8 min)

Note to facilitator: each tactic will require a slightly different discussion, but here are some standard questions to help your planning. It's useful to check in with your Regional Coordinator or Field Organizer to help think about the specific planning that you'll need to do for each tactic.

Review the next steps in the tactical plan: either organizing nationally coordinated tactics, or tactics that your council will organize at the local level.

• Who is our priority target for this action?
  
• What is the date, time and place for our action?
• Who can take leadership for planning this action in more detail? 
  
• How can we coordinate with nearby councils? (if applicable)
  What did we learn from our recent actions that might apply to this event?
• Where in our community will our action be most effective? Can we find out if our target is planning to be in our community anytime in the next few weeks?
• What can we do to make our tactic most likely to earn local media?
• What can we do to make our tactic most likely to recruit other MoveOn members?

January One-to-One Drive (50 minutes) 

Review context for January One-to-One Drive - 10 min
As we all know, 2009 was a roller-coaster of a year.  For many of us, the political reality fell far short of our high hopes, and in spite of the many challenges we faced in the health care fight, our councils did powerful organizing.  We know that the health care fight is far from over in this final January sprint and we'll continue pushing hard this month for real, progressive change. 

While we continue the fight, it's also an important moment to step back from the fight to have real, honest conversations with one another about the political fight, the growth of our council and our personal growth and skill development.  We'll also begin to vision how we want our councils to strengthen in the months ahead and think about our personal role in that growth.  It's a moment to really open ourselves up to our fellow council members and to practice deep listening with one another.  In sum, it's time to reflect on where we've been and start planning for where we're going.  That's why we're launching the January One-to-One Drive, a month of one-to-one conversations between council core members and with a other members who may soon step up and join the Council Core.

Our goal is simple: every core member in a MoveOn Council will have two in-depth one-to-one conversations between now and Sunday, January 31st: one with a fellow core member and one with a potential core member.  Nationally, our goal is to have over 1000 conversations in just four weeks.

We'll create a national reporting page (coming soon) to track these conversations and share the best insights and ideas.  And at the end of the month, we'll gather together on a National Council Core Conference Call on Monday, February 1st at 9pm ET / 6pm PT to debrief our month of conversations and look ahead to next stage in our fight.

Read One-to-One Basics

Now is a chance for your council to discuss this project.  Here are a few suggested questions to spark discussion.

• Why is a national One-to-One campaign important for MoveOn Councils at this moment?
• What about the One-to-One campaign is exciting to you? 
  
• From your own experience, why are one-to-one's valuable?  What have you gotten out of doing a one-to-one in the past?
  

One-to-One's and Debrief - 30 min
Note to facilitator: Now is a moment to break participants into pairs to have a brief one-to-one conversation.  Let everyone know that we only have about 20 minutes for this one-to-one and that we'd normally recommend at least an hour for the one-to-one's we'll do after the meeting.  After our one-to-one's, we'll come back to the larger group and debrief what we're taking away from doing one-to-one's.

Break participants into pairs.  As much as possible, ask participants to find a partner they don't know well.  Use the agenda on the One-to-One Prep Worksheet (also pasted below),

• Commitments and Next steps!  Ask: How will you commit to the council / core beyond the health care fight?  Make sure your ask is strong "Can we count on you to....?"  and you have a plan to follow up "We will talk on X date to check in."
  
• Re-commit to being/Become a core member?! (If they aren't already, if yes, set up an orientation)
• Re-commit to/Join the Recruitment or Media team?! (If they aren't already, if yes, set up an orientation)
• Join National Core member call on Monday, February 1st at 9pm ET / 6pm PT.
• Early February Organizing meeting/ Health care campaign debrief (DATE/TIME)

After twenty minutes (even if everyone is in the midst of a good conversation), bring everyone back to a larger group to discuss.  Here are a few suggested questions to spark discussion:

• How did it feel to talk one-to-one with a fellow council member about the health care fight?  What did you take away from the conversation?
• How would a conversation with a potential core member be similar or different?
• What would a strong ask actually look like (making a strong ask for core members to recommit to the core or for potential core members to join the core)?  (It's good practice to ask someone to roleplay the ask).  Why is making a strong ask an important part of the one-to-one's?

Plan our council's One-to-One drive - 10 min
Note to facilitator: Use the next ten minutes to make concrete plans and get solid commitments for this project. 

To make a concrete plan for your council, use the One-to-Ones: Council Planning Doc:

1. Using the table (see Council Planning Doc) , make a list of all the core members (present and not present at the meeting) and all the potential core members in your council. (Ask members are your meeting to brainstorm names of potential core members to engage in the One-to-One campaign.) 
2. Set a goal for the the total number of core one-to-one's and potential core one-to-one's for your council. Your total goal should be at least equal to 2X the number of your Core members. (The national goal is 2 one-to-ones per core member) 
3. Decide which core members will talk with one another.  Decide who will reach out to the potential core members.
   
4. Set deadlines, in particular the date by which everyone will have set up their one-to-one's and the deadline for doing the one-to-one's. (Remember the national deadline is Sunday, January 31st).
5. Decide on a feedback loop.  How will you as a council share the results of these one-to-one's and hold one another accountable to completing them? And, commit to reporting back on your one-to-one's centrally so we can collect experiences from across the country on the reporting page (coming soon).

Closing (7 min)

• Go around: ask everyone to re-state what they committed to during the meeting, and their next steps.
• Set a time and date for the next check-in call or meeting (1-2 days before the next action or ideally, every week between now and the next organizing meeting - to check in about one-to-one's!)
• And, set a date, time and place for our next organizing meetings. Who can host, and register the next meeting online?
• Thank everyone for being part of the meeting, and conclude!
• Eat and socialize. Community-building is an essential part of a strong council!