I have been a member of a permaculture group for over 8 years, and on the committee for 4 years and I have seen both the organisational and technical side of our permaculture group steadily improving. One of the organisational improvements we started up a couple of years ago was the yearly planning meeting.
One day early in each New Year each year the committee gets together at a member’s place and we go through what we have achieved over the last 12 months and what we want to do over the next 12 months. We will also discuss where we want to go over the longer term as well.
The meeting theoretically runs from 10:00am to 2:00pm (although it sometimes runs later), everyone brings something lunchy to share and we take half an hour in the middle of the meeting to eat together. In reality we could probably spend a week if we wanted to discuss everything that came up during the planning meeting so to make sure we use the time efficiently we have to identify what the priorities are and work on them in order.
This is how we ran this year’s meeting.
- Organise the day- Because it is early in the new year (before the first public meeting of the year which is the first Monday in February) it can be difficult to get everyone there at the one time. More often than not you just have to go with the date where most of the committee can attend (usually some time on the 3rd or 4th weekend in January). I sent out and email to all the new committee members giving them a couple of weeks’ notice. For the committee’s review I attached last year’s minutes and this year’s draft schedule for the subjects the main part of our public meetings and a similar draft schedule for the year’s living skills courses. Additionally I asked them to think about, and come to the meeting prepared with, one thing that was not working for us (and how to fix it), one thing that was working for us and one new idea. I re-sent the email a couple of days before the meeting as a reminder.
- Work out who is going to be the chairperson – this is an important decision because the chairperson can make or break a meeting. The chairperson has to be a strong enough personality to keep the meeting on track with enough tact so that they don’t alienate everyone! This is my first year as president and the others thought I should chair the meeting. I’m not sure I was best for the job but in the end we got where we needed to go.
- Put up some butcher paper – with 3 sheets of butcher paper taped to the wall or wherever, we have a place to make things visual, written up where everyone can see them. Not only is it a visual representation of the discussion but acts as a record, which can be typed up later. We labelled each of the sheets, the first one was for the stuff that wasn’t working and we called it “issues” the second was for stuff that was working which we labelled “working well” and the third sheet was for new ideas which we labelled, predictably enough, “new ideas”. In the end we needed two sheets for issues (ain’t that always the way?). It is important to get a good scribe, someone who can write stuff down that contains the essence of the discussion and is legible afterwards, that’s why I make a lousy scribe, ‘cause I got lousy writing! Different coloured pens can be handy to highlight specific notes if required.
- Review of previous minutes – It is really important to have good records at any formal meeting so you can revisit previous decisions if required and that goes for the planning meeting as well. In our case there was not much still relevant from the previous year but we had set some targets around things we wanted to happen during the year and we had developed a vision statement. It turned out during the review that we had a better than 50% completion rate on our targets. Anything which came up as still needing to be addressed was written onto the “Issues” sheet.
- Issues – After a review of the previous minutes (which was pretty quick really and focussed only on the important stuff) we had a general discussion around issues and things which were not working for our meetings or any other faced of the organiation, each one being written down on the issues sheet. Here is where it is important for the chairperson to keep the discussion focussed on identifying the issues rather than identifying one issue after which everyone goes into “solution mode” and a lot of time is consumed in discussions on how to fix that particular issue. Time gets away and other potentially more important issues don’t get identified. There is a fine line, however, between keeping the discussion on track and shutting someone down, after which they may not contribute again. I have no magic answers for that one only to say speaking respectfully to everyone (no matter how irritated you feel) can help immensely. The main thing is to identify as many issues as possible in a given time and get them recorded so they can be evaluated for significance later.
- Lunch! – When sending out information prior to the meeting it is good to specify that people bring stuff which is easy to prepare and sharable for lunch. If everybody bring stuff which needs to be cooked or needs extensive preparation that can erode meeting time and next thing you know an hour and a half has elapsed. It’s nice preparing and consuming food socially, but you don’t get through everything you need to in your allotted time. Bread, cheese, salady type stuff, or something easily reheatable like soup or pizza can be a good choice. Another option is to have a working lunch but we have found a short break (15 minutes to 30 minutes) in the middle works well. Having (non-alcoholic) drinks available throughout the duration of the meeting is a good thing to have too.
- Things Which are Working – When working with this committee stuff it is really easy to get caught up in the mountain of things to do, and you know that once that mountain is completed there is an even bigger one behind it. I have always found it valuable to regularly review all the stuff we have done and gotten right, even if it is only once a year. Hence, we generate a list things that are agreed on by the group as going well. Another side benefit of this process is when one of the things going right has had a particular driver or champion, it is a great opportunity to appreciate that person for the work which has been put in.
- New Ideas – some of these may have been percolating for ages but there doesn’t seem to have been the right forum in which to bring them up or get them actioned. This is the right forum. Everyone gets the opportunity to make suggestions and have them written down and they can be discussed at a later stage.
- General Meeting schedule and living stills schedule – these went out with the email in draft and are finalised at this meeting. The subject of our monthly meeting used to be ad hoc so that we sometimes had to scratch around at short notice to find a topic and someone to present, but now everyone agrees at the start of the year and in can be written to line up with the living skills schedule and vice versa. This is the first year we have developed a living skills schedule for the year. An example of our General Meeting schedule and living skills schedule can be downloaded here.
With the completion off all of this work and a chat about the website with our new IT guru out time was up.
Where to from Here?
There are a number of places where all this information is going to go -
• All of the notes will be typed up and emailed to the committee members,
• Everyone will get three votes for the issues which they consider to be the highest priorities, the issue with the most votes gets discussed and acted on first as part of the next monthly committee meeting, the one with the second most votes gets discussed at the following meeting and so on.
• The new ideas will also be discussed and a driver will volunteer (usually the person or persons who suggested the idea) to champion that idea as the year goes on. So that we will be able to continually improve.
Over the last couple of hears we have found the planning meeting to be a great aid to smooth running of the permaculture group. We like to do it early in the year before things kick off but in reality it could be run at any time of year and still be beneficial.
