The Food Justice Community Kitchen in the BIG ONE

| WiserEarth Global Communities group |

Here are a few tips and thoughts about  helping to set up a local WiserEarth Group. This came from my experience setting up the WiserEarth group in Paris. Please feel free to add your thoughts to this page, comments or further ideas.

Cheers

Camilla

1. Send a personal message to new members when they join welcoming them to the local group.

2. Read member profiles and about sections as its great to put group members in direct contact with others who may live or work in the same area or sector.

3.  Invite members to share ideas/discussions/organizational information and other resources directly on the group

4. Send out weekly or bi-monthly or monthly updates to group members either updating them about latest new members or events. Invite members to share their latest news with you so you can send this out on the updates.

5. Encourage regular group member meetings. Meeting members in the non-virtual world enables a much stronger network to be created.

6. Use a group calendar to make it easy for the group to set up a time to meet. for example Doodle

7. Choose a time and date that meets the largest number of members schedules. For example, the Paris group always meets in the evening after work as this fits most member's schedules.

8. Set up an agenda and some objectives for the meeting, even very informal ones

9. Choose a relaxed, informal meeting place for the first meeting. For example, the Paris group chose a well-known cafe in Paris for its first two meetings which hosts other nonprofit events.

10. Choose a venue where it isn't going to be too noisy to talk

11. Book a table/area at a venue if possible to make sure everyone gets a place to sit down.

12. Find out whether members would like to just meet and have a drink, or eat together. For example, the Paris group found that some people wanted to stay on after the meeting to eat and talk further, while others had to go early.

13. Keep a list of all the people who attend each event and where they work/what they are involved in.

14. Find someone who can help out at the event and take notes for the meeting.

15. Expect more (or less) participants than said they were going to turn up

16. Allow everyone to introduce themselves and their work/interests, for example in relation to a 'Wiser Earth'

17. Encourage everyone to invite others who may be interested in joining the group

18. Ask everyone to put some money in a kitty to pay for any beverages for the evening or make sure that everyone knows to leave some money behind to pay for any drinks they've had

19. Close the meeting formally so everyone can do some informal networking

20. As the group membership grows, send out a questionnaire to all group members to ask questions about how to organise future meetings (e.g. frequency of meetings, venues, timing, objectives of the group, themes to be discussed etc)

21. Invite other members to host and/or run the meeting and share in managing the online group.

22. Send a resume of the meeting and ideas for a follow up

23. Follow up conversations with discussions within the group's website itself / carry on the discussions online.

24. Invite new members to the group by checking for new members living in the region.