Before: Review relevant documentation and determine what needs to get done at the meeting; Create an agenda with an outcome, a responsible person, and a time limit for each item; Send out a meeting reminder and agenda at least one day ahead. During: Facilitate, move the group through the agenda, guide the group to decisions, and identify action items. After: Send out notes, follow up with individuals, report out on progress as needed.

Create a plan that includes projects or areas of work, deliverables, time frames, and who is responsible for what. Determine the best way to organize the group’s efforts (e.g., working together, splitting into subgroups).

External: If you are working on a public-facing program or deliverable, make sure to build communications into the work plan! Internal: Make sure to report out on your group’s progress! You can also connect your group with additional support.

As a group leader, you play a critical role in making the community a welcoming, inclusive space for community members. Fortunately, you have a lot of tools at your disposal.

Chairing a group is hard sometimes. Don’t be afraid to lean on your facilitator!

This document is for anyone leading a committee, working group, or other project. It is meant as a resource to support you in your role; it is not prescriptive. Each leader brings their own set of experiences that enrich the community; this can be just one more tool in your toolbox. This document was created by Educopia Community Facilitators, and is grounded in the Community Cultivation Field Guide and our experiences facilitating groups and projects.

• Review notes from the last meeting (2 weeks ahead of time)

  • Are there items from last time that you did not have time to cover?

• Review your work plan (if applicable)

• Find out what items group members will be bringing to the meeting (e.g., a subgroup will have a draft ready for review)

• Determine what needs to be accomplished in the meeting

• Determine who needs to be at the meeting

• Determine the best way to make use of meeting time given what you’re trying to accomplish. Some options for using meeting time:

  • Check ins on in-progress work (good when different group members are working on different projects or programs)

  • Discussion (good when the group is starting something new, needs to make a decision, is dealing with a tricky issue, or is ready to review something done by a group member or subgroup)

  • Collaborative work on a project/document (good when you have a concrete deliverable you’re working on and time outside of meetings is scarce)

  • Presentation by or discussion with a guest speaker or subject matter expert

• Create agenda items: Translate your goals and how you’ve decided to use meeting time into a series of concrete agenda items. Each item should have:

  • A description

  • The person responsible for the item

  • The desired outcome (e.g. a decision on an issue, shared understanding of a process, etc.)

  • The time needed/allowed for the item

• Determine how best to facilitate: Different activities might require different facilitation methods - consult with your Community Facilitator if you need help deciding how best to lead the group through a particular agenda item. Looking for some structured activities? We love Liberating Structures!

• Determine what pre-work by group members is needed for the meeting to be successful

• Invite any guest attendees

• Send a meeting reminder and agenda at least one day ahead of the meeting

  • Ask for prework or request updates via email, if needed

• Let people know if the meeting will be recorded

• Make sure someone is going to be taking notes: This can be pre-arranged via a rotation or left to individuals to volunteer each meeting, but it’s helpful for someone other than the chair to fill this role

• Especially if you don’t have an icebreaker incorporated into the agenda, it’s ok to take a minute or two to check in or have some social time at the beginning of the meeting. It won’t necessarily move your agenda along, but it can be great for group cohesion and it can be helpful to know how group members are feeling that day.

• Move the group through the agenda: Keep an eye on the time and the group’s progress. You may need to cut something off to move on to the next agenda item, but you can also modify the agenda on the fly if something ends up needing more time than expected.

  • Before moving to the next agenda item, make sure that you take a moment to surface any comments or questions that haven’t been raised yet

• Facilitate: Make sure everyone has room to speak or contribute in other ways and that the discussion is moving the group towards its desired outcome. For structured activities, make sure to explain the activity and any rules of engagement.

• Guide the group to decisions: There are lots of ways for a group to reach a decision, including consensus and voting. As the chair, one of the most helpful things you can do is to intervene when discussion bogs down. Some common scenarios:

  • Discussion is unfocused or circular - you may want to summarize the group’s position based on what you’re hearing and either redirect the conversation or suggest a decision that group members can respond to.

  • Discussion is dominated by a small number of people with strong opinions - you may want to ask for a show of hands or other straw poll to determine whether the group really is split or whether there is broad consensus with one or two outliers.

  • Discussion is speculative or has too many unknowns for the group to reach a decision - you may want to postpone a decision until more information can be gathered or spin off a sub-group to continue to hash it out.

  • Discussion has turned up two or more competing ideas and the group isn’t getting any closer to consensus - If it’s a minor issue, you may want to move to a vote. If it’s a bigger issue, ask the group how they would feel about a vote. (I.e. would individuals be able to accept the decision of the majority and move forward?) If the group supports it, move to a vote. If some group members are still uncomfortable with the possible outcome of a vote, shift to identifying next steps for the discussion. These might include tabling the topic until the next meeting or spinning up a subgroup to do further work on it before the full group meets again.

  • People aren’t sharing their thoughts - First, make sure you aren’t on mute! Give it a minute - the silence feels longer to you than it does to the people thinking of their response. You can then reframe the question, or check in to see if you can uncover why people aren’t speaking up. Call on a specific person if you know someone in the room might have experience to share (but ALWAYS give them an out in case they really don’t feel like speaking)

• Identify action items: Before the meeting wraps up, make sure to identify action items the group decided on, who is responsible for each one, and any relevant deadlines.

• Send a follow-up email to the group shortly after the meeting with the meeting recording (if there is one), a pointer to the notes, and any action items decided on (with responsible individuals and deadlines).

• Follow up with individuals as needed to provide additional support for action items or address concerns from the meeting.

• Communicate the results of the meeting to your facilitator or leadership group, or via whatever channel the community has established for reporting on progress. See the Internal communications section for more details.

One of the most important roles of a chair is to help the group determine what it wants to accomplish, how it will tackle the work, and when. It’s difficult to generalize about this process, because it can vary widely from group to group, but it’s good to set aside some time at the beginning of the year (or whenever the group is forming or regrouping) to come up with a work plan. This work generally begins with a review of the group charge or annual programs, and can incorporate additional brainstorming and decision-making about priorities.

The work plan may include:

• Projects and priorities outlined in the current charge or suggested by the leadership group

• Projects and priorities carried over from previous iterations of the group

• Projects of interest to current group members (it’s more likely to get done if someone is excited about it!)

The plan should outline projects or areas of work, deliverables, time frames, and who is responsible for what. There are a variety of ways to document your work plan. It does not need to be formal - the important thing is just to write it out. If you have a planning process or format that works in your own work, feel free to use or adapt it here.

There are many ways to organize work within a group - the best one will depend on the work that needs to be done, the personalities involved, and group dynamics. Some common patterns:

• The whole group works on all projects and deliverables together, with the chair serving as the point person.

  • PROS: Simplicity, everyone gets to contribute to everything, lots of group togetherness

  • CONS: Heavy burden on chair, can result in no one else feeling accountable for the work, can be a slower method of completing work

  • Best for: Smaller groups, groups with a limited number of projects and lots of brainstorming/ideation needed, groups that are less engaged or more advisory in nature

• The whole group works on all projects and deliverables, but a different point person is identified for each one.

  • PROS: Chair can focus on scheduling and coordinating point people, everyone gets to contribute to everything, leadership/ownership opportunities for multiple group members

  • CONS: Still requires full group engagement on all projects, so scheduling and meeting planning can be a challenge, can be a slower method of completing work

  • Best for: Smaller groups, groups with multiple projects that are of interest to the whole group, groups with engaged members OR groups that need help engaging or developing ownership over their work

• Subgroups tackle different projects, reporting back to the full group.

  • PROS: Can be very efficient and allow group members to specialize, lots of opportunities for ownership and leadership development among group members

  • CONS: Complexity, can result in a proliferation of meetings or subgroup members feeling disconnected from the work of the larger group

  • Best for: Larger groups, groups with well-established or well-defined projects and deliverables, groups with a broad range of responsibilities, groups that are difficult to schedule (e.g. spread across many time zones), groups that already have lots of engagement and ownership

If your group is working on a public-facing program (such as an event or a publication), you will need to think about how best to share it with the community and the world. It’s helpful for the chair to keep this in mind while planning the group’s work, so that communication is built into the work plan. Some of the communication channels available to [PLN] are:

• [PLN] listserv

• Other professional listservs

• Social Media

• PLN website

Work with your facilitator and the Outreach Committee to determine which communication channels are available and appropriate for your group’s work and to arrange for [host] communications support, if needed. The type and amount of [host] support will depend on your needs and available resources, so it’s best to start the conversation as early as possible!

Each community has its own structures and procedures for reporting out on the work of groups. As the chair, you are responsible for understanding the process and ensuring that information is shared with the appropriate people.

Another role of the chair is to connect the group with other members of the community who can support their work. Some of those people:

• Other committee chairs: Feel free to reach out to the heads of other committees when your work aligns with or can support work happening elsewhere in the community.

• The leadership group: Get in touch with the community’s leadership when your committee is considering a major change to programming or policy, needs additional resources to complete its work, or needs input from leadership to make a decision.

• Your community facilitator: The facilitator is the go-to person for a lot of things, but they are a good first point of contact when staff support is needed. They will know what kinds of support are available on what timeline, and whether additional resources are needed to support the work.

• [host] staff: Staff can help with meeting scheduling and other administrative tasks, communications, and planning. Start with your facilitator, but know that there is a whole team of people rooting for you!

As a group leader, you play a critical role in making the community a welcoming, inclusive space for community members. In this role, you are supported by:

• Agendas, group guiding documents, and community guiding documents (these are called “containers” in the AORTA Anti-Oppressive Facilitation Guide): We don’t always think of policies, processes, and guidelines as tools of inclusion, but they are a key component to keeping a group on track and resolving difficult situations. Meeting agendas and the group charge give you a concrete place to point people when you need to redirect a conversation or refocus the group on your shared goals. Community governance documents (including the Code of Conduct, which is discussed in more detail in the next bullet) take some of the burden off of the chair to determine what is acceptable behavior and provide mechanisms for resolving problems. Following established procedures can also help to create an inclusive environment by increasing transparency and fairness in decision making.

• The Code of Conduct: Familiarize yourself with your community’s code of conduct and make sure group members are aware of it. It’s especially important to know what kinds of behavior are considered unacceptable by the community and what the reporting mechanisms are. Invite group members to reach out to you if they have concerns.

• Support for accessibility: When scheduling standing meetings, staff will ask if participants need any accessibility accommodations (e.g. closed captioning/transcripts of meetings). As the chair, you are also empowered to request this kind of support for your group. Staff can also help you to create an accessible environment for your group via additional tools and strategies (e.g. having a “narrator” role to provide verbal cues for visual information and/or a “chat monitor” to flag conversations happening in the chat box). One way to kick off this kind of work is just to express to the group that you want everyone to be able to participate fully in meetings and invite members to reach out to you with any concerns or challenges.

• The leadership group: As a chair, you are empowered to request support or suggest changes to community practices from the community’s elected leadership. If you feel that something in the community’s culture or administration is creating a non-welcoming environment for your group members, speak up!

If your community is majority-white, pay special attention to the experiences of people of color in your group. Avoid putting them on the spot or asking them to represent the views and experiences of people of color more generally, but ensure that they have space to participate in the conversation. Be on the lookout for microaggressions by other group members - if you are able to identify and respond to problems, the people of color in your group can focus on the work of the group, rather than using their energy to respond to and correct bias. The same goes for people from other marginalized identities.

Learn more about inclusive facilitation in the AORTA Anti-Oppressive Facilitation Guide.

A lot of chairing is logistical and organizational, but there is also a significant component of emotional labor that doesn’t get talked about much. You can think about this as “uncomfortable things that chairs sometimes have to do.” Here are a few:

• Ask people to do things: Everyone is busy and it can be hard to ask your committee members to step up and take on work outside of meeting time. Just remember that it’s your job to guide the group, not to do all the work! It can help to set an expectation from the beginning that everyone serve as a point person or contribute to at least one deliverable in a substantive way. That way, committee members can look at all of the work the group will be doing and when and identify which projects best line up with their interests and skills.

• Interrupt people: This can be difficult if you were socialized to feel that it’s rude to interrupt an individual or an in-progress conversation, but it’s often necessary when chairing meetings. You may need to interrupt to make space for other voices in the conversation (someone is talking too much or is interrupting others), if the conversation is veering off-topic or getting into inappropriate territory, or if the conversation isn’t moving the group forward. Most people are OK with being interrupted if you explain why you’re breaking in (e.g. “This is such an interesting conversation, but we really need to come to a decision on X by the end of this meeting.”) If a group member is resistant to being redirected, it may be helpful to check in with them outside of a meeting or enlist your facilitator to help.

• Check in with committee members one-on-one: If someone isn’t showing up to meetings or following through on commitments, if someone is really quiet or seems uncomfortable in meetings, if there is conflict within the group, or if someone is behaving inappropriately in group conversations, it may be time to reach out to them individually. You can do this via email or ask to have a phone call - either by yourself or with your facilitator.

• Leave uncomfortable silence: Sometimes groups just need a minute to think. Sometimes they need to see that yes, you really are just going to sit there in silence until someone volunteers to take on a task. This is an especially important skill if you don’t want to end up doing everything yourself.

• Manage difficult personalities: It happens! Just do your best and keep your facilitator in the loop. Definitely be on the lookout for gender, racial, and other marginalization dynamics at play, since it’s often not just personalities at work. Recognizing these dynamics can help in addressing the problem and creating a welcoming space for all community members.

• Ask for help: Many of us are socialized not to ask for help or admit when we’re struggling with something, but this is an important part of leadership. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, not sure how to handle a tricky situation, or just need an additional pair of hands, talk to your facilitator. That’s what we’re here for! Know that we see how much work you are putting in and that we understand how challenging it can be at times. We are here to help think things through, provide moral support, identify additional resources for difficult projects, or take on problems above your pay grade (e.g. enforcing community norms with difficult committee members).