Practical FAQ

To determine the Covid Protocol requirements for in person events refer to our 2022 Protocols Document

In-Person: To reserve a room at Parrish Hall, the meeting or event needs to be added to the Parrish Hall Google Calendar. Anyone on LC has access to this calendar and it is paired to our Hello@ account. We have two fobs to the building, you can contact a Co-Chair or Secretary if you need access. All meetings should be accessible and include a virtual option. This means you should have a zoom link, and include people on the call in the meeting, especially keeping an eye on stack so no one gets ignored. For larger meetings this may require a dedicated Zoom minder and A/V person.

Virtual: Zoom calls can be scheduled through our chapter zoom account or national's DSA Line 27 Chapter Leadership are the only people with Zoom account access. Calls should always require registration (password optional).

To add a meeting to the website, it should be added to the Hello account's Google calendar and scheduled as a DSA New Orleans Event in order to appear on the events page. Meetings should include a brief description, location and/or zoom registration link and a contact person if necessary.

What makes a good meeting? (5 minutes)

Icebreaker: Name, pronouns, what makes a good meeting / your favorite thing about a meeting?

Good meetings are informative, democratic, efficient, and participatory. They don’t take too much time because we all have lives to live - a meeting should never run longer than 2 hours, or ideally an hour and a half. After a good meeting we walk away feeling like we learned something, and/or moved towards achieving a shared aspiration of our group. A good meeting is structured enough to ensure we get to the important items on our agenda, but not overly structured to feel suffocating. At a good meeting, everyone is invited to participate, and the discussion is not dominated by a few voices.

What is DSA + What are we doing here? (10 minutes)

Ask the group: When we talk about DSA, what are the most important things to hit on?

-Democratic / member-run

-Believe in fighting for the working class

-Want to take power away from the 1% and distribute it to communities of people

-Struggles against racism, sexism, and all forms of injustice

-A national organization with local chapters

Ask the group: How do you describe DSA to new members?

Agenda Activity (20 minutes total)

Imagine you have a monthly housing justice meeting. You have a political forum two months away. This month you will be tabling at a rally. You also want to discuss a potential policy campaign that your group has been invited to participate in. There are 15 people at your meeting, and 4 of them are new.

It can help, before making an agenda, to think about the goals you want to get out of the meeting. Based on what we have on the table, what should our goals be? (5 min)

Ask the group: How would you structure your agenda for the meeting? (15 min)

Break into small groups for this portion.

Outreach & Follow - Up (10-15 minutes total)

In order to have a good meeting, we have to make sure there are people in the room. If we see the same people every month at our meetings, or if our meetings are getting smaller over time, we need to think more about what we are doing to turn people out to our meetings?

Ask the group: What do your committees do to make sure there are people at your meetings every month? Or what could you do better? (5 minutes)

To turn people out, we need to build a list of interested organizers. The #1 way to build a list is through outward facing activities. We get new contacts from tabling, canvassing, and from sign up forms at our events. If we want to grow, every single meeting and event we host should have a sign-up sheet or form, and we must make contacting those people a top priority.

There are three basic things we can do to get the people on our list to come to a meeting:
-Email

-Call/Text

-In person ask

1 to 2 weeks before: send email to list

1 week before: call/text

24 - 48 hours before: send text reminder

24 - 72 hours AFTER meeting: send out a follow-up email with meeting minutes

But we also have to make sure that we follow up with the people who show up. Especially if there’s someone who came for the first time, or someone you want to step up. Text them the next day after the meeting. Thank them for coming, and ask them what they thought.

The best organizers keep up-to-date lists of their contacts, with notes of who has been contacted, when, and how. Keep track of when people last volunteered or helped to lead an activity. This will give you a good sense of who you should ask to step up. It will help remind you to reach out to people who haven’t showed up in a while to check in with them.

Any questions?

Running A Meeting (25 minutes)

Assume it is someone’s first meeting.

Take Roll

• Go around and ask names/pronouns

• Identify elected leadership in Committee and Chapter

Have a sign-in form

• Ideally electronic
• Can be on the DSA laptop or on a phone that you pass around

What is DSA & Background on Committee

• What does the committee do?
• What are some major projects and campaigns?
• How can people get involved? What other fights might it be connected to?

Ask everyone to go around and describe their committees/working groups.

Assign out roles

•  Identify a notes-taker, a time keeper and (if necessary) someone to run stack

Ask: What is the role of the meeting chair?

• Maintain the space and make sure the goals of the meeting are kept
• Keep the discussion on track & make sure everyones’ time is respected
• Make sure the space is comfortable and accessible to all members

Here are some tips for chairs:

• Invite members who haven’t spoken much to contribute. Don’t be afraid to cold call on people who haven’t spoken with soft ball questions. Sometimes people want to speak, but aren’t sure of how to interject

• Ask questions to get the conversation flowing. Create opportunities for members to speak. For instance, if you have to explain a policy or concept like “Medicare for All” or “Step Up/Step Back,” call on an emerging leader and ask them to describe it.

• Don’t be afraid to ask members who are speaking too much to step back. Don’t be afraid to interrupt someone who is talking too much! If a member is being disruptive, it’s your duty as facilitator to refocus the meeting. Also, if a member is speaking and there are side conversations going on, it’s your job to make sure to tell people to be respectful of the person speaking. Here are some things you can say:

• Excuse me [Bob], but [Allison] had her hand raised. Let’s hear from her, and some other folks who haven’t spoken first.
• Thanks Bob, but let’s stick to the discussion at hand. I’m happy to talk a little bit after the meeting about that.
• We have a few more items on our agenda to get through, and we want to be respectful of everyone’s time, so let’s try to keep our comments brief.
• Hey, only one person speaks at a time, please.

                Ask the group: What are other tips for facilitators?

Time Keeper

• This job is pretty self-explanatory, and is a good task to give to an emerging leader or a member you want to encourage to step up more.

Note-Taker

• What are some best practices for taking notes?

Keeping Stack

• We use “one mic” at our meetings. If a number of people want to talk the best practice is to keep “stack,” which is a running list of folks who want to speak. In DSA we use “progressive stack,” meaning that we prioritize marginalized voices and members who haven’t spoken. If people have spoken frequently, we put them lower on the list.

Include a section of open discussion.

• Ideally political education.
• This is perhaps why members come to committee meetings the most. Readings can be cool and helpful, but certainly not necessary. Think of this as a way to sharpen projects the committee may want to do. Discussion can be a huge way to understand where organizers are coming from.

Ask the group: What are you planning to discuss at your meetings this month?

Make concrete asks of members during planning session or at the end of the meeting.

This doesn’t have to be about actions or events.

• Can someone help text bank for the next meeting?
• Can someone keep stack at the next meeting?
• Can someone bring food?

Have accountability structure for asks.

• Who will follow up? Elected leadership?
• Note-taker should record the names of those who offer help.

End of meeting

• Make a formal motion to adjourn so that it’s clear when the meeting has officially ended.

• Leaders can have a short, informal debrief afterwards
• You can invite members to stick around for 10 minutes or so to chat and ask any other questions