Getting People Motivated to Meet and take Action

Community participation must be stimulated and encouraged. The goal of any well-meaning mobilizer must be empowerment of the community. You must be clear about your goals and knowledgeable about your community; you must have the skills needed to be effective; and you must be able to recruit volunteers and acquire the necessary resources to achieve your goals. As a organizer, you will need to search for resources, both within and outside the community. Your most valuable resource is, of course, your volunteers, but there are often others who will eagerly help to make your community a better place, there are many community service organizations that will lend their support and local businesses as well as corporations will contribute resources to community service as a marketing tool.
   To be effective as a community leader you will need to develop communications and people skills. Since you will be dealing with the community as a whole, you need to learn how to be an effective public speaker, without preaching or lecturing. You should develop a relaxed, confident demeanor, you need to be an honest, enthusiastic, positive, tolerant, patient and motivated person who instills in others a trust in your ability to be a facilitator who treats people fairly and inspires others to action. You will also need to work on the skills of; planning, managing, observing, analyzing, and writing. The best way to learn these is through practice.
   You will also need to be a good listener. Don't preach or make speeches like a politician, facilitating is a process of bringing people together, communicating a vision, understanding everyone's concerns and providing ideas and leadership. You will need to lead a discussion without being bossy, dictatorial or sarcastic. These are all skills that are largely self-taught.
   Recruiting help and support requires explaining your goals and methods, and convincing individuals and businesses that they can benefit from their involvement. You begin raising awareness by calling for a public meeting welcoming all members of the community. You should have already met with members of the community and discussed their concerns, it would be a good idea to take an informal poll that would help to identify the most urgent issues of concern. You then show people that they have the potential resources to solve their own problems. All they need is the will, and some visionary leadership which you can provide. You facilitate their cooperation, by helping them to organize committees and create community plans and project designs. Your goal should always be to strengthen the community by promoting self-sufficient actions. As an organizer who aims for a consensus, it's most important to stand on your principles while maintaining neutrality. Do not align yourself with any factions.
   At the meeting, your role is as moderator and facilitator, to get everyone involved and to help create an open forum where everyone feels free to state one's mind. Once you identify the problems and goals, you need to prioritize the tasks and work with other members of the community to create committees to address them. There will often be a tendency to assume that you are there to solve their problems for them. Therefore, you must delegate responsibility and emphasize the need for individuals to commit themselves to making the committees problem solving, goal oriented organizations. You must never forget that your main responsibility is helping to empower the community to help itself. You may have to sometimes remind the audience that they have to solve their own problems, and that you are there to assist and guide them.They may also assume that you will provide resources. That misconception should be avoided by constantly encouraging the community to identify its own resources and offering to help them make use of what they already possess. After all, no matter how poor the community, it does have resources, it has people who have energy and skills to offer. All they need is motivation, support and possibly some training. The community can benefit from training in appropriate areas, they can also use some encouragement to help them reveal and use those hidden resources. As the community begins to function as a problem solving organization it will become attuned to the talents and resources it has and will draw on them like a well.
   While many people may focus on immediate problems, you should remain focused the overall goal for the community, which is to become strong and self reliant, to govern itself and increase its prosperity and quality of life.

HOW TO RUN AN EFFECTIVE MEETING

Elect a chairperson who will conduct and lead the meets and who will also spend time making phone calls, meeting with people following up on decisions and plan future meetings. During meetings, the chairperson should be a impartial moderator who makes sure that the agenda is followed, both in content and timing. A chairperson should never monopolize the floor or dominate discussions, a moderator's role to facilitate participation and build a consensus, not lecture.

Introduce Yourself: Don't assume people know you. Use the introduction as an opportunity to make a personal connections with as many attendants as possible, and, if you what to be effective, make sure and remember their names.

Prepare For The Meeting: Create an organized agenda and submit it to your CA secretary well before the meeting.

Follow The Agenda: Keep the discussion on topic and on time. Keep the meeting moving along by occasionally announcing how much time is left. Try to prevent a speaker from domination the discussion, make sure that others have an equal chance to speak.

Direct The Discussion: Keep the focus on the issues, if irrelevant topics are brought up, remind them that there will be a time for new business later on. You may need to recap information from the current or a former meeting. Act as a moderator and limit your own opinions.

Facilitate Voting And Decision Making: Bring issues up for a vote or negotiation as needed.

Mediate Arguments When They Arise: Remain fair and impartial. Give all sides a chance to state their point of view.

Review What Has To Be Done: Review the discussion, decisions made, and tasks to be assigned so that people leave the meeting with a clear understanding of what has been addressed and accomplished and what still needs to be done.

Follow Up On Decisions: Keep in contacts with members and encourage them to get things done, provide help when necessary.

Encourage Participation From All: Recognize that people respond differently, based on their background (personality, sex, age, handicap) and try to allow for these differences.

• Look over your prepared information to determine which materials are relevant to your meeting.
• Understand, promote, support and interpret the overall goals of the organization as well as the narrower purpose of the meeting.
• Consult with the administrative board and past committee chairpersons.
• Ask members to serve on committees, and to take on other tasks; define their responsibilities clearly.
• Schedule and conduct meetings. Notify all members, guests and reporters well in advance of the meeting.
• Make sure that meeting proceedings are recorded.
• Delegate responsibilities among members; see that the work gets done, and give recognition for accomplishment.

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