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INTRODUCTION

Your group has been invited (missed that? click here). You have a first meet-up date - perhaps imagined as a "taster". So now: check out Free The Change's Taster Session framework, our Group Welcome and the other tools below - to help you get everyone started on the same page.

TASTER SESSION - A POSSIBLE FRAMEWORK

We recommend offering people a "taster" of a meet-up - giving them both a flavour of what it might look and feel like, and taking the chance to capture people's unique hopes and fears about taking part - so together you can hone something that works for your context. If it goes well, get people's agreement about how and when you'll start to meet properly - and over what initial period of time.

We've put together a simple Taster Session Framework you can use and adapt. It recommends that you share the Group Welcome Handout in advance, which you'll find below.

 

PROMOTING FREE THE CHANGE TO A LARGER GROUP

If you want to recruit people into a group or groups from a wider pool (e.g. a trade union branch, congregation, club etc), we have a range of tools you can make use of, including sign-up sheets, video and presentations.

THE "GROUP WELCOME" HANDOUT

It's probably going to be helpful a week or so before you meet to share a bit more about the nature of your Free The Change group - reminding people why you're initiating it and setting out a few basics to help everyone get started from the same page.

Our Group Welcome handout aims to help with that. It's aim is to maximise the quality of your conversations and minimise assumptions that could get it the way later on. We suggest using it as a "conversation starter" to frame your own group's hopes and agreement. As usual: use it, adapt it or do something different.

THE BASIC FRAMEWORK - PRINTABLE HANDOUT

Download and share a printable handout of the basic Free the Change meet-up framework, here.

SOME SHARED VALUES - POSTER

As a conversation-starter, during a Taster session, or to display as a general reminder at meet-ups - this poster lists some of the possible values that are often important to Free The Change groups.