Recently we have planned more discussion topics, and we hope to keep them limited to the first half hour, to allow ample time for small-group discussion. A steering committee of half a dozen volunteers organizes the meetings. The steering committee meets every few months, usually for an hour before a monthly meeting. The steering committee reviews the evaluations that have been handed in by participants and discusses suggestions for future meeting topics. When planning future meetings, the steering committee members assign one person to coordinate each meeting.
Coordinators are responsible for obtaining speakers if a discussion topic requires it.
They also make sure there are enough small-group facilitators available and help run the meeting. Steering committee members often volunteer to facilitate the small-group discussions. One responsibility of the facilitator of small groups is to ensure that basic ground rules are followed. In order to help the meetings run smoothly, we have implemented a few ground rules that we state at the outset of each meeting. These ground rules will be familiar to anyone who has worked in group settings, such as encounter groups, therapy groups, or recovery groups.