STEP ONE: LAUNCH

Get your circle rolling! 

1. Put your circle on the map.  It’s important to register your circle on our website so it is officially on our Resistance Circle Map. This way, people other people in your city can register for and participate in your group.

2. Bring together your team. It’s more fun to work together. Call up friends, leaders in your city, and see if you can get 2 or 3 more people to organize your circle with you.

3. Make a facebook group. Make a facebook group with the name, location and description of your circle. Invite your friends and people in your network to join it online.

STEP TWO: PREPARE FOR YOUR MEETING

Decide on details for your first meeting and designate roles to your team members

1. Details, details, details.

   1. What – What will your first group meeting be? A lunch? A picnic?  A gathering with snacks?

   2. Where – Is there an easily accessible location that will hold the number of people you hope to have at your event. An ideal spot is a free spot (eg: living room, library community room)

   3. When – what time will your event begin and end? 

1. Designate team roles. Brainstorm all the things that you will need to do before your meeting. Here are some potential roles to keep in mind. Filling as many of these as possible will help your meeting run smoothly

   1. Facilitators - two people who will run the content for the event

      1. Use this script we made for you and adapt it if you’d like -- as long as it stays within our principles.

   2. Logistics - someone who can make sure you have everything you need for the action, including things that need to be printed.

      1. Print out the following materials to hand out at the meeting:

         1. Sign in sheets (very important!)

         2. Principles

      2. Food purchasing and/or preparation

   3. Recruitment

      1. Set a goal for how many people you would like to have at your first circle meeting (5-15 people).

         1. Sending emails through listservs, going through your facebook friends, and reaching out to other community leaders with strong community networks to recruit people to your circle are all good ideas.

         2. Send out a reminder email 2 days before your meeting to all of the people expressed interest in being a part of your circle

STEP THREE: MEET

Execute your first Circle meeting!

On the big day you will gather folks from your community to get to know each other and to start strategizing about how you can participate in the resistance against Trump

STEP FOUR: DEBRIEF

Spend some time talking about your first meeting; discuss pros & cons, how it felt

1. Report back and keep organizing. After the event, take a breath, and celebrate with your team. Be sure to thank everyone who helped, and plan a next group meeting as soon as you can. Assess what went well, where you could have improved.

2. Send thank you emails. Send emails to everyone who attended your circle meeting to thank them for coming and to provide them with the notes from the meeting.

3. Decide on Next Steps to Organizing with your Resistance Circle. Come up with a plan to follow-up with folks who expressed interest at  your meeting in engaging in resistance work. This might look like each person on your team making a follow-up call to those who stepped up to remind them of their commitments.