New members guide

If you’re new to Extinction Rebellion (or new to Stroud) then coming along to your first meeting can be daunting, but there’s no need to be worried.

How our meetings work

Each meeting is facilitated by two crew members (normally one woman and one man). They are responsible for that weeks meeting and they’ll lead and guide the group through the evening. They’ll introduce themselves, explain how the meetings work.

Our meetings normally start at 7pm and finish around 8:30pm.

Step 1 – Welcome and instructions

Our structure at XR Stroud allows anyone to lead, so your facilitators for the evening will explain how this works, and run through some of the hand signals used to give everyone a chance to speak and keep the meeting moving. (~15 minutes).

Step 2 – check in

We open each meeting with something called a check in. It’s normally some sort of opening activity that gives everyone in the circle a chance share a little detail about themselves.

These are a sort of warm up activity. It could involve movement, reading something aloud, or just sharing your name and why you’re at the meeting. The facilitators will talk you through what to do, as it’s normally different every meeting. (~15 minutes)

Step 3 – Announcements

We go around the circle to see if anyone has anything they want to tell the group about. Normally this could be an event that’s happening, or a call out for help with something. It’s the “news” part of the meeting and it’s usually how we hear about upcoming actions or events locally or nationally. (~1 hour)

Step 4 – Break

A quick break for a drink and a chance to chat to anyone in the room, or discuss the announcements raised. (~10 minutes)

Step 5 – Working groups or post action chat

We normally break out into groups after the break. This is where you can choose which working group you want to contribute to for that meeting. You can choose to sit with whichever group you want, and can decide what tasks you’d like to take away from the group.

If we’ve had a recent action, we’ll normally continue to talk as a group about how the action went, what we learnt and to explore the emotions and experiences involved to those who were unable to attend. (~30 minutes)

Step 6 – Check out and finish

We come back together as a group to do an activity together to finish the evening. This could involve singing a group song, or repeating the activity from the check in, or going around the circle again and sharing a word about how we’re feeling. (~10 minutes)