Step 3: Getting Organised


Step 3 - At the next meeting

Encourage people to share what they learned about the particular project and its underlying issue or cause. This should help to develop a good solid view of the situation and also expose any weaknesses in everyone's combined knowledge that may need further research to clear up.

Brainstorming

The next stage could be to 'brainstorm' a list of goals and objectives you want the project to achieve. Then brainstorm ideas for achieving those goals and objectives. Brainstorming needs to be fun and exciting. It's good to encourage friendly competition and laughter. The basic rules of brainstorming are: wild and crazy is fine; more ideas are better than less; silence is fine as it means people are thinking. To facilitate brainstorming you will need a large poster board or chalkboard to post or write down the ideas the members come up with.

Once that is done go through each of the proposed activities and determine how well it will meet the proposed goals and objectives by balancing difficulty against effectiveness. You can also look at each suggestion's strengths and weaknesses.


More research needed? Here are some ideas

If there are gaps in everyone's knowledge after researching the issue or problem that needs to be cleared up; you could brainstorm what the next step should be. For example, if you were setting up a recycling campaign in your community and no one was sure what current local recycling facilities were capable of and what current recycling rates as a percentage of total rubbish in the community were; you could decide as a group to write to your local public authority, and ask if the action club could be taken on a tour of the recycling facilities. You could also ask for someone to come and talk with the members and answer questions like 'How much of their rubbish on average does the community already recycle?' 'How much room for improvement is there' and 'How could the action club help best'.

Some ideas could include:

	Contacting other people who are concerned with the issue or problem
	Deciding which people, groups, schools, companies, organisations and authorities should be contacted and how. This could include contacting other children and action clubs
	Inviting people with expertise in your issue or problem to come and speak to the action club
	Conducting surveys and interviews to learn how the issue affects people and how they feel about it
	Writing letters, emailing and phoning people who will likely have information you need
	Organise on-site tours and visits (Taking photographs or video footage can be useful)

Resources:

A guide to effective brainstorming can be found using this link