Preparing:

• Understand how much time and energy you have to put into this project;
   

• ​Remember you can dream big. You could take this as an opportunity to create great future projects, or to meet new friends and cool people in a safe setting to have a chat about things that matter for your region;
   

• Discuss the goals for your meet-up; 
   

• Decide upon a time and location. Ideal locations are easily accessible by public transit, walking, or bicycling and have enough space. Try reaching out to schools, community centers, or even someone’s home will work, we also suggest public spaces such as parks and squares.

 

Reaching out!

Make a plan of who to invite and how to reach them. Be intentional about getting as diverse and representative a group there as possible. Making the invitation personal is always a good way to go! Maybe record a fun video of you and your friends calling people out?  Remember you don't have to do this alone - together is always better! :) 

 

This is also a great chance and excuse to get in touch with people who are doing or willing to do great things in your region. We recommend reaching for local (online and offline) hubs where these people circulate: cafés, coworking spaces, Facebook, local social enterpreneurship groups, etc. Often an old-fashioned poster grab people's attention, and is the best trigger to remind people. As the marketing mantra goes, you need to something seven times before someone will take action. Get postingI

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Old Poster template

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Designing the process:

We encourage you to do the 3 F’s: fun, fast and free!
 

• Have clear goals you want to achieve from the gathering. It could be from getting to know and connecting to new people in your community interested in sustainability to just figuring out what first action you want to take together. It's up to you. Also decide who you want to make sure is present, how you’d like to run the meet-up in the most exciting and appropriate way for your community, and how you plan to follow up.

• Design your agenda to make sure you achieve your goals in the time frame you have available

• People are more willing to talk when they’re fed, and people share ideas while sharing food. You can encourage people to bring some sort of food or drink. 

• There are many cool processes that can help to reach results that considers the diverse points of view. Here are some of them for you to get inspired: World Café | ABCD | Open Space.

• Depending on the format of the event, you can also create some complementary activities such as a storytelling walk, games, sports, 

 

Facilitation tips:

Thankfully, experts have put together some free helpful toolkits so you do not need to reinvent the wheel... and can learn how to facilitate gatherings:

 Community Tool Box 

 Hyper Island Tool Box

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**This material was inspired by 350.org guidelines and streetfeast.ie