In This Section - Sample Meetings Sunday, November 09, 2008 1:16 PM This section is all about meetings. You will find helpful information on how to hold a meeting, and how to be comfortable speaking in front of a crowd. You will also find plenty of ideas for meeting topics and meeting types. The best feature of this section is in the end - the actual sample meetings. I have chosen four topics, researched material, and created whole meetings for you. These sample meetings should guide you, show you how much, and what kind of material you should be preparing for each meeting. How To Hold Meetings Sunday, October 26, 2008 8:46 PM Public Speaking Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:03 PM Ideas for Meetings Friday, November 07, 2008 10:17 AM While GSAs are created to offer "Safe Space" for LGBT students, it is important to remember that you are still a student organization, and your club, and therefore your meetings, should have a purpose. Meetings can provide fun time for the members to hang out, but there should be a goal for each meeting. It could be: o What are we going to learn today? o What project are we going to work on? o What event needs planning? o What issues are we struggling with (as a group, or as a school) that needs fixing, and what are we going to do today to fix it? These goals can be easily kept in mind by preparing an agenda beforehand, and sticking to it during the meeting. The leader of the group should always have a clear idea of what is going to be discussed at the particular day's meeting, and should keep the group on track until their goal has been accomplished. Some leaders may focus more on the social aspects of the club, and may be afraid that students won't attend if they are going to have to have serious conversations. What needs to be remembered is that a GSA is contained in an educational setting, and while they provide support, GSAs also need to give back to the LGBT community, and help others. The members should be able to identify with this idea, and should support helping the community in your area. Your members are lucky that they have a safe place to go, to be themselves, and it needs to be remembered that not all communities have GSAs. If you are afraid that your members will stop attending, use what I like to call the "split meeting model". Spend the first half of your meeting discussing the important topic. Don't limit yourself on time, if your members are working hard to accomplish the goal, don't stop them until you have finished. Then, spend the second half of the meeting as social time, bring out the snacks, and hang out. I would not suggest having social time first, for two reasons: 1. It is easier for students to go from focused to rowdy, not the other way around 2. People have time constraints, and you don't want people leaving during the important part of the meeting because they have to get home for dinner, their ride is there, etc. As the leader of the club, you need to make sure that the content of the meeting is set into place. I suggest buying a folder, and keeping week-to-week materials inside, so that you can easily access information on what you think needs to be covered. Creating an agenda, and possibly having meeting topics mapped out for the whole year, will help you avoid talking about the same things over and over. Try to pick topics that you yourself don't know very much about, do ample research, and learn along with your members as you discuss them. The topics you could choose from are plentiful, and include: a. Homosexuality: nature/nurture? b. Bisexuality and the Kinsey Scale c. Transgender Issues d. LGBT people and Religion e. Feminism f. LGBT Authors g. LGBT Musicians h. Ex-gays, Exodus Ministries, etc i. AIDS j. Civil Rights and Marriage k. Activism l. LGBT Victims of the Holocaust m. Hate Crimes n. Important LGBT People in History i. Glbthistorymonth.com o. Gays on television and in media i. afterellen.com ii. afterelton.com p. Gay Animals q. Stereotypes of LGBT People r. What is "Queer"? s. Cross-cultural Examinations of Homosexuality t. Showcase LGBT Organizations in your community u. Goals for your school and your GSA this year Other meeting ideas include: a. Celebrating LGBT events b. Having guest speakers from local LGBT Organizations This may seem like a lot of work, but remember, the more you do as a serious organization for the LGBT community, the more respect you will get in return, not only from the community, but from your school administration, and possibly members of your student body. Being able to cite specific things that the group accomplished under your leadership will also help when it comes time to ask for school-board approval, or apply for scholarships. To help get you started, I have researched 4 topics, and provided you with ideas for the meetings to accompany them. Top 10 Meetings Friday, October 31, 2008 12:37 PM Gay/Straight Alliances: A Student Guide Top Ten GSA Meeting Ideas Running good meetings is an essential part of making your group successful. It's not so easy to choose topics or activities that make people feel welcome and encourage them to keep coming back. This Top Ten list was compiled after surveying groups from all across the Commonwealth. The following are some of the best suggestions: 1) "Things I've always wanted to know but was afraid to ask..." Newton South has a Question and Answer Day. Students anonymously write down questions on any subject they want and then spend the rest of the meeting discussing the questions and coming up with answers. 2) Bring-a-Friend Day. Concord-Carlisle hosts a Bring-A-Friend Day when every member is supposed to bring someone new to their meeting. They said it changed a lot of people's minds about the group and destroyed some of their stereotypes about homosexuality. 3) "No Adults Allowed" (Or only one). Some groups have complained that their advisors are too domineering. Having this sort of meeting could be a good change of pace. Tell the adults that only one of them is invited to this special meeting and that they aren't supposed to talk unless absolutely necessary. 4) "What would the world be like if 10% of people were straight and 90% were gay?" This is an activity that can help participants better understand what it feels like to be devalued. Ask the group to imagine that instead of living in a heterosexist society, you lived in a homosexist society. What would it be like if parents wanted their children to grow up gay? What would it be like if you had to come out as straight? How does it feel to be labelled a minority? 5) "How can the Gay/Straight Alliance work with other school civil rights groups?" Newton South is planning a meeting with other groups to discuss how they can all work together and educate each other to make their school better for everyone. 6) Coming Out. Some groups have found that coming out discussions are very helpful and important. Plan a meeting where people will talk about how they think people would react, what might happen, how to establish support networks, etc. 7) Games... Brookline High School's Gay/Straight Alliance plays a game called Common Ground. The students and faculty advisors stand in a circle. One person begins by saying, "I've got a younger sister," or some other statement that is true for them. Everyone for whom this is also true, steps into the center of the circle. Everyone who doesn't have a young-er sister, stays on the outside. You can always lie and choose not to step into the circle. The game often brings up personal and important issues that students may not want to discuss in a more formal setting. Sally Rubin, a Newton student, recommends an activity her group calls the Culture Walk. She said, "There are one or two mediators and they begin by asking a group of people, for example, the women, to move to one side of the room. The guys then ask them questions they've always wanted to know and the women give them answers. Then the women get to tell the guys what they as women want the guys to know about them. This game gradually becomes more personal. You don't have to talk or walk." 8) The things you'll learn... Some groups plan meetings where one student researches a topic related to gay and lesbian life, culture, history or oppression, and then reports to the rest of the group what they've discovered. Topics don't have to be dry and boring. They could include: Rock Stars Come Out, The Stonewall Riots, Lesbian Pulp Fiction, etc. Other groups pick current events from the newspaper, such as Gays in the Military, and discuss how they feel about these issues. 9) Working for Change. Most groups have spent at least some meeting time working to institute change in their schools or communities. Some have written editorials for their school papers describing the work of their group, their plans for the future, what they'd like to see change in their school and how to combat anti-gay prejudice.