Tips for using facilitation:

as adopted from the SEAC organizing guide page 24)

• Facilitation is not meant to control the group, but to make the meeting flow more smothly through someone who coordinates who talks in what order. The group as a whole decides agendas items and time lines

• Every now and then ask "lets hear from someone who hasn't spoken yet." This is a usefull technique to counter the dominance of some members

• Some times a good point is lost durring a discussion or brainstorming session. This is why it is important to have someone writing down what the group comes up with. The note taker should rotate from week to week, make sure others besides women take notes as well. As facilitator it is important that you repeat the ideas, or ask the person who stated the idea to repeat it.

• Keep the discussion moving forward, if people seem to agree in the strawpoll, re-state the proposal vote on it and check for consensus. If people keep repeating the same ideas, remind the group that we need to move foward and can talk more about this issue later. If there is no consensus and the deadlock is consuming the group's time, prepose another time to finish the discusion and move forward with the business at hand

• Keep a stack by writing down people's names or other identifiers in the order you see their hands. Direct responses may jump stack if someone makes the appropriate hand gesture (index finger pointing in towards the group). If 4 people have talked a lot and are ahead of someone who hasn't talked alot, you can call on that person first (this is called weighted stack)

• If confusion sets in, name who the next three speakers will be so as to have an uninterupted discussion

• The facilitator shouldn't be someone who has a strong opinion to express their feelings on this topic