running my first meetup

[Zoe Girl]

So I start my first meetup on Saturday, eek. I have 11 sign ups and can easily fit about 10 - 12 of us in my apartment so I will make one more try tomorrow to find a meeting space at a library ($10 an hour) and then plan for it at my apartment if not. I have several people coming who I know in real life so I can feel comfortable with that, a few new faces, but still ok. If I rent a space I am going to promote to more people at my school as well. Either way I will have a suggested donation for space and meetup cost.

Advice is welcome, I am planning on leaving 15 minutes for everyone to find the place and get settled. A 15 minute or less formal introduction with a question about what we bring to our work and practice. Then 20 minute sit. I was going to put together a 20-30 minute presentation on the current state of mindfulness in education. We can have a nice long time for discussion and then food of course. I want to wrap up with some next steps, was the amount of time good, do people want a regular presentation by me or to rotate, space and date and time of course, then what we would need to charge to make sure that we are covering costs and offering something to the presenter for that meetup.

I feel pretty strong in facilitation. I have been one of 4 of us in my meditation group for the last couple years. I had a person last Monday who was getting us off track but was pretty okay until the end when he said something that I had never heard in 30 years of study, and it seemed to be a way to either show how smart he was or just to take us off into someplace weird. I shut it down, but my co-facilitator found it nice and skillful. My role as a facilitator is to hold that space for discussion and practice so at times we need to re-direct a person or the group. Before we had our group of 4 there was one guy who took over the group with conspiracy theories and dominating conversations.

[iris lilies]

So, this is about mindfullness in education?

nice f you to start this up and host it. Get a feel feom the group who comes about future places to meet. Sometimes strangers are reluctant to attend a meeting in someones home. Thats not me, but I think some people are shy about that.

[kally]

can you tell us more about the 20 minute presentation please?

[Zoe Girl]

I am working on it now, I am going to talk about the history of mindfulness in education, some brain science, shout out my friend's TedTalk (she should be attending), get some information on where it is being adopted and how here in Colorado and Denver, talk about the different books and training options, and then I hope we will have some data from youth available. That has just started to come in but the data on adults is strong so I will be looking that up this week. I have most of the presentation from the training I took with Mindful Schools, really good stuff, but I want to throw in some of my experiences as well.

For the discussion, discussions either tend to take off like crazy or have a bunch of people staring at each other, I am going to have 3-4 questions to get us going. Like "how would you respond to a school/parent who said you were teaching Buddhism?" "What to do if you think a kid is traumatized or otherwise really uncomfortable",

[razz]

Sounds really interesting!

[rodeosweetheart]

Your discussion questions sound excellent!
I;'d go for the library or sometimes you can get a back room in a coffee house.

[Tammy]

For people like me with multiple allergies, I have to avoid homes with cats, dogs, birds, cigarette smoke, wood burning fireplaces or heaters, damp basements, air fresheners, scented candles, and older dust mite filled carpets and overstuffed furniture.

So most homes don't do well for me. I feel like a hypochondriac just typing that list. But it's all things that set off my asthma.

And people can't just clean and blow out the candles and put the the pets in another room. Doesn't help at all cause these things are microscopic and hang around an environment for months.

Public spaces are so much better, although not perfect either. Some of them have dust and mold and air freshener problems too.

Yes I live in a minimalist museum like home. Leather furniture. No carpets. No pets. No smelly things. But I love it. I feel healthy and normal when I control my environment.

[Dhiana]

The library space at $10/hour is not unreasonable. If 10 people show that's a reasonable request of $2/person (assuming a 2 hour meeting).
You aren't asking for funds above and beyond the rental fee.

If I was new and considering joining, I probably wouldn't go to someone's home.

[Zoe Girl]

I called one more library and still don't have space there but have information about what times I could schedule future meetups. Even if this is a small group we can spend some time planninng how to get it out of my house, what we need to set as a fee, and times we can get a library room. Apparently I picked a time that have a lot of story times, but I don't want to change too much for the first one.

I did let everyone know that I have cats, I can put them in another room but I know it would still affect someone badly with allergies. Tammy I have one child who should have been raised in a bubble so I understand. I loved when we had wood floors, but I have a hepa filter vacuum which helped a lot. She mostly had skin reactions and they could be pretty bad. So no scenty candles, dryer sheets, etc. forever.

[Zoe Girl]

Okay I had my first 'real' meetup meeting. I had the planning meeting but yesterday I had a library space, 3 people come, and a nice structure. Okay I really wanted more than 3 but I met my goal of collecting money so I didn't pay the library rental myself!! Woo hoo,

There are some interesting dynamics among the 3 people who came, the one that I didn't want to like I ended up really liking a lot. One of the sweetest ladies also is pretty open about a mental illness and then was concerned someone else would bring it up (the one I wasn't supposed to like ya know). So I got to assure her that I was the facilitator, I knew what I was doing, and it was my job to manage the group. Of course no one brought it up, and we had a really nice time with some clarity about what we wanted.

R (the one I wasn't supposed to like) was very honest about money in this business. I appreciated it, I am concerned that it will be some side volunteer thing for me again and not support my needs (hence my focus on getting the first meeting to at least cover the room cost). We talked a long time afterwards. Her organization does corporate programs and uses part of that to support work with homeless teens. So they are getting contracts but need teachers. Well I must have impressed her because she basically asked me to come work with them. I talked about my work schedule and she said there are opportunities for weekend training times depending on the contract. This brings in a multitude of skills, mindfulness practice, training and teaching of youth and adults, mediation/facilitation, and being just interesting and engaging. I feel pretty darn confident in these areas, always with something to learn and grow from.

Off to plan for next month, and that blog!