Activity of the fortnight: How to get and keep people involved in Transition
By rob hopkins 7th March 2016
How to get and keep people involved in Transition
Format: Activity / Guide
People: Good for the whole group to read, but in particular those who are responsible for welcoming new people into your group.
Resources: This guide, a place to meet
Why do it
In many places there are lots of people who are interested in helping out with Transition – and if this is true for you, well done! How to harness their enthusiasm into taking the project forward can be challenging, so this guide shares learning from many groups on this question.
Throughout the following stages of Transition people may approach you to get involved in Transition you need to think about how to integrate them into you group:
· In the early days of Transition you want to create an effective, consistent Initiating group to start and develop Transition.
· When you set up your core group to deliver Transition in your community
· When you start to develop projects.
This guide is about finding, welcoming and keeping people involved Transition in order to work together, it covers the following:
· The first part of the guide focuses at how you involving people who want to commit to doing Transition in a significant way often by being a permanent part of a Transition group, be it the initiating, core or project group. There is a focus on how to involve people in meetings, as this is the most important time to engage them properly, otherwise they will often disappear.
· The second part of this guide focuses on how to include people in other ways – those who don’t want to come to meetings, who aren’t good in groups, but have skills and energy that the project can benefit from.
Activity:
This is a simple one:
· Read through this guide together and then decide as a group, how you will involve new people who want to get involved, there are lots of suggestions in this guide, in particular think about:
§ How will you welcome and involve new people, so that they stay
§ What roles are needed to do this, for example a welcome person or buddy role
§ What resources do you need to produce to give to new people
· Decide who will be responsible for meeting and welcoming new people.
Why people get involved
It is important to understand that people join voluntary groups for many reasons other than the group’s stated mission or purpose, so it is worth thinking about the following:
· Lots of people get involved to learn new skills, to meet people, to feel valued, to give their skills and energy to something worthwhile, to find their way into new work and for many other reasons.
· You need to make space for people to benefit from being part of Transition in ways that go beyond just getting work done.
· Groups where everyone is a volunteer should feel different to a workplace – more sociable, friendly, nourishing and enjoyable. If they’re just task-driven, or just talking shops, it’s likely people won’t stay.
Finding and inviting new people to your meeting
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There are suggestions in “How to start Transition: Developing an initiating group” about how to find people who might want to join such a group. Think about what skills or connections you’re missing, and actively ask around for people who could bring them.
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If you meet someone who you think would make a good contribution to your group:
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Invite them – and tell them why you’d like them to join.
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Often the first people to start a group are the ones who just jump in and start things – but those who come later may be less confident, or need an invitation to step in.
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Celebrate your achievements as a group.
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Let people know about your successes through newsletters, local media, website posts.
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Show photos of people from different age groups and backgrounds enjoying themselves at your events.
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If your group is already working well you may not want to keep inviting new people. Perhaps you can find a balance by making a time when new people can step in, and others can easily leave – once or twice a year.
Welcoming and involving new people
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If you see someone new arrive, welcome and talk to them!
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Think about the process for new people joining.
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It can be good for someone from your group to meet up with the person before they come to meeting to explain to them more about being involved.
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Do you want to have a trial period, where the group and the person get to know each other, and then make a decision about joining?
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What are the risks of doing this? Or not doing this?
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Have a person whose job it is to meet anyone new and help them to find their place, explain how the group works, and anything else someone new might need to know.
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You could set up a “buddy” for each new member – who helps them before and after meetings, answering questions and filling in on the history.
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You might write a document for new people joining which includes things like
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Contact numbers and emails for the group, website information
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How roles are shared – who does thing like writing news bulletins, collecting agenda items, chairing meetings – does one person have a continuing role, or do you swap around?
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Group agreements such as how you make decisions, code of conduct, mission or purpose statement
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Information about your organisational or legal structure if you have one
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Anything else you can think of that help a person to understand your group
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Make sure your group includes time to reflect on how your meetings are run as an ongoing part of group development (allow 10 minutes at the end of every meeting). This gives new people a chance to tell you how it is to join, and what they need to really participate.
How to include new people in meetings
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When a new person is at your meeting give time at the start for everyone to say their name, any role they have, something more personal (such as why they joined, or what they get out of being part of the group) – and give the person joining a bit more time to say all this, plus something about what they’re bringing to the group, and what they might want from being part of it.
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Pass around an agenda at the beginning of each meeting so that people can add their points to it.
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If you notice that new people aren’t speaking much at meetings you can
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go round the whole group asking for ideas or feedback on a proposal or topic.
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specifically invite new people to give their views- but be sensitive about embarrassing them, or putting them on the spot.
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Share out tasks among members. If you are working on something, try and include at least one person who has never done that particular sort of work before.
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Get small working groups to do particular jobs, reporting back to the main meeting for support, to answer any questions and to check it’s OK to continue. These smaller groups should try and have someone new involved and not be made up exclusively of regulars or the most experienced.
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Be extra aware of any jargon or exclusive language you may be using – Transition has its own special words such as Initiating group, Theme group, Engaging the community, Peak oil, Awareness raising and so on which may need explaining.
Keeping People
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Don’t forget to thank people when they do something. When things are going well say so.
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How are you as a group at including people from different social backgrounds? If you have people from different backgrounds, spend some time together learning about what this means – what are the different experiences and expectations around things like
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time
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roles and responsibilities
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how to work together
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leadership
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language
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giving each other feedback?
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Look at the Transition Network Diversity toolkit here for more suggestions about how to do this well.
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During meetings, do you challenge put-downs or discriminatory remarks as this can really put people off being involved?
If you’re having difficulty getting new people to join, or stay
There are many reasons why people come to a group and then don’t stay. Sometimes it’s to do with their other commitments – but often it is because the group doesn’t really pay attention to the process of welcoming new people in.
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If you notice that people seem interested in your group but don’t stay, take action!
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Ask a few people who have left what drew them in, and why they didn’t stay. Ask them to help you make things better for others who come in the future. Listen and respond to their feedback.
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Reflect together on the culture of your group.
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Is it task-driven, appealing only to those who just want to crack on with things, in which case more reflective people may not want to be part of it?
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Is there a lot of talking, in which case those who want to do stuff may not stay?
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Is it friendly, welcoming and interested in people’s backgrounds and life experience?
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How do you get to know each other as people, as well as doing tasks?
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How would someone new coming to your group know that you value their presence and input?
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Pay attention to the practicalities of your meetings – how accessible, or easy to find, are your meeting spaces? Does the meeting time work for all – day or evening? Consider young people, parents and carers.
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Recognise the value of people’s different life experience and give them time to share this with the group.
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Take account of people’s different abilities to commit time and energy – see if you can be creative so that even those who can only give a little still have a role and feel valued.
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Now and again plan activities that encourage wider involvement. Make sure that all the usual suspects get involved, and talk with new people. What might seem like a simple piece of work to you may be really exciting to a potential new member.
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Where do you publicise your Transition initiative and its activities?
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If you want to do something about a gender imbalance, or want to work with more black and minority ethnic groups, does your publicity/word of mouth go to where these people will see or hear about it?
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Does it welcome them explicitly to your group?
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Does it encourage them to get involved?
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(This list was adapted from this Seeds for Change article)
Growing your Transition initiative beyond the Initiating Group
If the Initiating group is doing a good job of inspiring, engaging and connecting with people you’re probably working well as a group already, and may not want new members joining all the time – so think about how you can involve new people in other ways?
Here are suggestions for including new people beyond the Initiating group itself.
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At every event or workshop collect contact information for people wanting to know more or become active.
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Send regular bulletins of news to your growing email list including photos, stories of what’s been happening, and asking for help with things coming up.
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Have a list of people willing to help at events – bake cakes, be on the door, bring tools, share skills, be a “meeting and greeting” person. Appreciate every contribution. Some groups have a volunteer coordinator to make this even more effective.
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Have events where people with enthusiasm can share their ideas and find others to work with. This is key to starting new projects without the Initiating group having to be involved. Some suggestions –
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Use Open Space – on a particular theme such as food or energy, or a general topic about creating a sustainable, inclusive, happy future. (Guide to open space here www.transitionnetwork.org/support/community-engagement)
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Have conversations spaces such as Green drinks, Conversation Cafes. Include regular times where people talk about projects they’re doing and want help with, or ideas they have for getting something new started – and then have a way for people to talk to them.
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Use specific events to seed new projects and Theme groups. For example, a talk or work-day on growing food might end with an invitation to start an on-going group helping with growing projects. If you have one person who will coordinate a first meeting of such a group this makes it easy for others to sign up to a first group meeting.
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Don’t duplicate or compete with what already exists in your community – for example if there are lots of food growing projects, just publicise what they’re doing and encourage people to join them.
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This support resource was produced by Transition Network to see all our support resources go to https://www.transitionnetwork.org/support. This document is released under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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