Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
NEXT STEPS
If applicable, assign next steps to attendees.
CALENDAR
Find a time for the next meeting or reiterate a predetermined date.
WRAP-UP
People may be both energized and tired from this exercise. Now is an important time to recognize the hard
work it's taken to get to this point. All the discussion, effort, and ideas that went into this process are the
foundation of your community. Congratulate yourselves!
HANG OUT
If you have time, socialize afterward, so people can process the meeting. It could be the first time some parti-
cipants have taken part in something like this, and a chance to decompress might be appreciated.
DEVELOPING THE MISSION STATEMENT
PART 1: THE MISSION QUESTIONNAIRE AND GARDEN NAME
Have attendees break into small groups and hand out the questionnaire. The size of each group depends
on the number of attendees; six to eight people per group, generally.
Give each group twenty to forty-five minutes to discuss and fill out one mission questionnaire (
p.
20
)
. Remind everyone that there are no right or wrong answers. It is up to the group to decide the mis-
sion of the garden, and the process they use to get there is powerful, important, and just as valuable as
the outcome itself.
If your garden doesn't already have a name, suggestions might pop up. Ask each group to discuss
names and agree on the top two.
When time is up, ask groups to reconvene into the larger gathering, with one representative from
each group reporting answers.
Ask someone to record the group responses on a large flip chart. Have one flip chart sheet for each of
the nine questions and a tenth sheet for possible garden names. Vote on a garden name to get things
rolling.
You will start to see themes emerge from the mission statement answers. You may also see conflicts
of interest. Don't stress out! As a community organizer, it isn't your job to interpret or judge the de-
cisions of the community, but to funnel their viewpoints toward consensus.
PART 2: MISSION STATEMENT MAD LIBS
Once you've reviewed all the answers, it is time to meld them into a cohesive mission statement.
Be prepared: people will get hung up on grammar, punctuation, and particular words (have a diction-
ary and thesaurus handy), and may end up overlooking the bigger point of the exercise. This is human
nature and you'll just have to work through it. The group will go through an iterative phase, one idea
spurring another. All types of group discussion are necessary to get to the right place. Luckily, time
