Well, I got up earlier then usual, so I will give this another try. I'm going to write it on another document, and click and paste it to the forum this time!

I have spent a lot of time both as team facilitator and participant in my line of work. Some teams seem to work well, others seem to struggle internally. Here's what I have learned from my experiences and research on the topic. I'm going to assume that your group has some kind of stated purpose or goals. This is needed, as it guides your activities and actions. There are always more activities suggested then any club can manage, so by asking, "is this activity in line with our goals? Will it help us to reach our goal of ____? If so, it can be considered, if not then it's not considered.

The teams or clubs that seem to be the most successful have facilitators that:

I. Establishes ground rules for each meeting.

It's easy to assume that we all know how to act in a meeting, but the truth is we don't. Every one of us has team breaking behaviors! Yes we do! Some of us like to talk too much, some of us like to be quiet and then sabotage the decision after it's made. Some of us don't stay on topic. Some of us have side conversations etc. All of these behaviors keep progress from happening at a meeting, so it's really important to take the time early on to develop rules that will guide your meetings. This is best done with the membership so that they take ownership of the rules.

Some typical rules might be:
1. One person speaking at a time.
2. Make your comments to the whole group so we can all benefit from that knowledge or idea.
3. Keep your comments or suggestions on topic.
4. Allow 2 people to comment before you offer another comment. (You decide the number)
5. It's OK to disagree, It's not OK to be disagreeable.
6. We don't evaluate comments during a brainstorming session.
You get the idea, It's seems to work better by writing them in a positive way, telling the accepted behavior rather then telling them what not to do.

II. Review the Ground Rules at Each Meeting.

Once you decide what your ground rules are, it's really important to make them clear at the beginning of each meeting. Some facilitators will have them written on the agenda so that they are there for all to see, others make a poster for them to be put up. Some do both, but either way it's important to review them at each and every meeting.

III. Enforce the rules.

This is the hard part. You don't want to be rude in how you do this, but yet when someone is grandstanding, you need to have a way to help that person move on. Saying things like, "Thank you for your comments, now we need to hear how others feel about this issue." Doing a "round robin" activity when you want everyone to participate in the conversation. Go around the group and have each one say what they think. Depending on the size of the group, you may want them to limit their input to a certain amount of time. This helps get the viewpoints of those who don't usually talk, but also limits the agenda grabbers.

Calling on the "side bar" conversationalist to share their comments with the whole group can bring them back into the fold. Sometimes the whole group will break down and start talking with their neighbors. If that happens it's a good time for the facilitator to say to the group. This is a good time to review our ground rules again, and do so. Or, it could have been a long session and people need a minute to process what's going on, so you might have a short break here.

Have an "Agenda Bin". This is a place where you write down ideas that people bring up that are not on the agenda for today's meeting. A black board works well for this. Then if the meeting ends early and there is time you can decide to bring up that issue, or if not, it gets included on the next agenda. Members should be free to add things during any break times that they feel should be discussed.

Because it's really hard to run the meeting and watch for rule infractions, I always like to have what is called a process facilitator assigned. This person sit's next to the leader and when one of the rules is being broken, just quietly reminds them so that they can check the behavior.

IV. Have the group do a self evaluation on their use of the ground rules.

THIS IS CRITICAL, It does a couple of things. It reminds them that these rules are important, and will be continued and enforced. It also gives them time to reflect on the groups behavior and set goals for future meetings. It's important that we don't single out individuals here, but group behavior. There are lots of ways to do this, and the size of the group will dictate how you do it. In a small group you might do a round robin session with each person weighing in on how they feel the group was at following the ground rules. In a larger group, you may want to hand out a short evaluation form where they rate themselves good, fair, poor, on each rule. Leave a spot for any written comments or suggestions at the bottom. If you do this written evaluation, it is absolutely necessary you summarize the data and present it at the beginning of each meeting. That data might establish one of the rules that your group needs to work on. If so, you can set the stage for success in that area at this meeting. It's always good to celebrate any successes too. If the data shows that the group was really good at something, then have them give themselves a hand for doing a great job on what ever rule they were good at. Another way to do this quickly with a big group is to do a "pair and share" activity. You have each person chat with a neighbor about how they think they did as a group with each rule. (Limit the time to maybe 5 minutes.) Then have a quick raise of the hand. How many of your groups think we did well on rule one? Fair? Poor? Then pick one group the share their reason for thinking they did well, one for thinking they did fair, and one for thinking they did poorly. If a lot of the groups thought they were poor at limiting side conversations for instance, then the facilitator might say something like, "A lot of us thinks we need to work on reducing the side conversations, so that will be a goal for us at our next meeting. Also if one rule stands out as being followed, again that can be celebrated.

V. Always have a published agenda.

This provides an opportunity to keep the meeting focused, and it communicates to the members what is being discussed.

If you use these strategies, you will find that your meetings are shorter and productive. Nobody will complain if you end the meeting early!

I know this is more like an article then a post, but there are whole books on this issue. I tried to limit my comments to what might be useful to a starting club. I hope you find this useful. Now you know why I was angry when I lost the whole thing last time.