You'll need to decide where you're going to meet, when, and how often. That might be decided by you, by the person who asked you to be the leader, or by your members together.
Where you're going to meet - will that be in someone's home, the local hall or church, a cafe, a restaurant, a pub, or even on the internet? Always the same place or move around?
What format will you're meetings take - will you have a meal or snack before, after or during the meeting? Just drinks? (alcoholic or not?). We recommend you at least have tea/coffee and biscuits - but beware of members trying to outdo each other on what they provide if they take turns in providing it.
At the first meeting, if everyone already knows each other you may feel it's unnecessary to ask them to introduce themselves, although this can still be helpful, but if there's even one person present who doesn't know the others, get everyone to give their name and brief interests. It may be necessary to do that again if someone else joins your group later.
Throughout the meeting, be sympathetic to those who find it hard to hear or who work at different speeds. How you use the notes is up to you. You may like to read through all the notes first, then develop a discussion, or you may prefer to read and discuss the different ideas as you go through it.
If you need them, sample questions have been provided to help you get a discussion going. How deep you go is up to your group, not everyone may want to go to the same depth. If you want it, a separate sheet is provided with typical answers, which we suggest you only hand-out to your members after they've offered their own answers, so everyone gets a chance to develop their own thoughts.
If the group gets too big, be prepared to split into two smaller groups. In that case, you may need to find another facilitator for the new group.
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