The way we do meetings, with the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective, is open source. That means you can take that format and use it to make meetings on your own, in your groups, or do whatever you want with it. We don’t own the format or want to keep control of it.
Open source-ness is important as DIY, anarchy, and reducing power disparities. Sharing is vital for resisting capitalism for fun and just being kind, helpful human beings.
Information wants to be free! And meetings want to be free! Here’s hoping you will learn from the format and transform it, to do meetings the way you need to.
the format
There’s a format for the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective meetings. They go like this–here’s a sample agenda.
welcome–thank you for coming
safer spaces policy https://lvrmhc.org/2019/05/01/safer-space-policy/
roles–timekeeper, vibeswatcher, facilitator, one-on-one-er
first checkin–name/alias, pronouns, question such as what is your favorite pizza topping, what do you most want to learn, what’s your biggest weakness (to get all our voices in the virtual room)
material mutual aid moment–what you have to offer, what you can ask for
what is radical mental health moment
mention of the Soteria house dream
housekeeping stuff like proposed ideas, next meeting, new website, new sticker
substantial checkins, up to 5 minutes–how you’re doing, what you’ve been thinking about, how you’re feeling, what you’re looking forward to, what you’re up to
ask if everyone’s ok being photographed–take a photo or screenshot
topic discussions–pick two or three topics, based on commonalities in checkins
checkouts–question such as what’s your favorite winter thing, best thing you learned today, what would your name be if you were a dog, favorite Lego shape
variations
We had two meetings to talk about community, and we used this same format but simplified for the topic. So we did a welcome, safer spaces policy, and checkins were directed toward community experiences. Then there were some questions about community that could be answered for the longer checkin, and topic discussion about the aspects of community that we most wanted to talk about.
The art workshop that Brittney held about racism had its own format. But there was a similar attitude of care, listening, sharing power, DIY, authenticity, and deep honesty mixed with kindness.
go forth and love
Thank you for the ways you help the world. I hope this meeting format is helpful to you in doing what you need to do for the well-being of all.
Thank you to the friend who asked about using the format to facilitate another meeting and sparked these ideas!