How to mobilize a successful Core Group with few resources | The Mu Crew Mpowerment best practices

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Mpowerment Dayton OH

The Mu Crew is a Project of AIDS Resource Center Ohio.

The RETREAT 

Funding level “Copper” (lowest): The Mu Crew, a project with less than one dedicated full-time-employee (FTE), because of this low funding, they have adapted their Core Group (CG) meetings accordingly.

Issue: They used to host CG meetings twice a month, but that was too chaotic. Also, the meetings would drag on and they had guys who were falling asleep and getting board with a longer planning meeting and agenda. They were loosing numbers and the meetings were dragging out.

Solution: They decided to "up" CG to three meetings a month.  The 1st and 3rd Tuesdays are  ‘modified’ meetings. These meetings offer a light agenda - participants make fewer decisions and they also get to decide how active they want to be involved in upcoming events. The agenda part of the evening never goes longer than one hour. Participants are presented with a short and concise agenda. When the hour is up, they end the meeting and proceed to host the night’s social event. They do planning at this meeting, but leave the high-level planning for the ‘committee’ Core Group.  These meetings are light and social and around 25 participants show up for these meetings. On these nights some participants will skip the light agenda entirely and just show up for the social event. The agenda portion of the evening is always completed by 8.30pm.

The 4th Tuesday is a ‘committee’ Core Group. Is the ‘nuts and bolts’ meeting. The committee meeting meets for an indefinite length of time, until everything is planned and done. When they have larger events and outreaches coming up, they tend to stay later, otherwise the meetings don’t last all night. They talk and hash out all the details for upcoming events. The ‘committee’ is always fed. Pizza is provided at this meeting. Around 10 dedicated volunteers show up. These 10 are on a e-mail short-list dedicated to project planning agenda items.

Module 5 Core Group and Volunteers is a free download on www.mpowerment.org

Objectives: To familiarize you with the decision-making body of the Project, the CG, as well as other volutneers who are not part of the CG. Both the CG and the non-Core Group volunteers are essential Core Elements of the MP.

RELATED:  BLOG: Retreat planning with The MU Crew, Mpowerment Dayton Ohio  

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Happy Birthday Mu Crew!