Movement Charter/Ambassadors Program/Resources/Facilitation guide template


MC Ambassador's quick guide to host a community conversation

Before the conversation

  • Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the Movement Charter. You can watch this Ask Me Anything sessions recording.
  • After you know the date and the venue of your conversation(s), please share it with your community. Create your conversation page on Meta-wiki page.
  • Draft an invitation and send it to them so that they can book their agenda. Ideally, share the announcement 1 week ahead of the date; send a reminder around 2 days before the session; and a final reminder some hours before the session date. Here is an example of an invitation you can use. Feel free to customize it.
  • Ensure that the charter is translated into your community language. If not, ensure it is done before the conversation and that your community members have some time to read it. Here are the important links to be translated:
  • Gather a facilitation team. We recommend a main facilitator, a note-taker, and a moderator. In some context, the facilitator can also be the moderator, so feel free to adjust it as it fits you. Generally, the facilitator is the main host/presenter of the session. They manage the general flow of the conversation. The moderator supports the facilitator to collect questions and check the chat (if online). The note-taker(s) can be 1 or more people, whose job is to ensure that every comment and feedback is captured during the conversation.
  • Reserve a date to have a prep meeting with the facilitation team at least one day before the meeting, in case you need to adjust something.
  • Create your Etherpad notes link. You can go and create one here: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/

Let us know if you need help with this by reaching out to us on the MS Forum group.

During the conversation

  • Be at the conference venue in advance to ensure everything you need is ready. If it is online, ensure you test every setting.
  • AGENDA: You can use this agenda as an example for a 1-hour session. Feel free to adapt:
    • [5 min] Welcome
    • [30 min] Discussion of texts in breakout groups
    • [15 min] Sharing back from breakout groups
    • [5 min] Final round for comments
    • [5 min] Next steps and wrap up
  • BREAKOUT ROOM: If you have more than 5 participants, we encourage you to have them in breakout rooms to facilitate discussions. For each room, ensure there is a note-taker and a reporter (someone who will share a summary of what was discussed in the breakout room with the whole group when you return). For the 1-hour session, for example, we will recommend at least 30 min discussions in rooms with about 10 min for each chapter. We encourage you to give the attendees some time to read the content of the 3 chapters in the breakout room, so they can participate. You can use the following questions to guide the discussion in breakout rooms:
    • PREAMBLE
      • Does the preamble text explain the Charter’s intention and scope well?
      • What do you think about the [1] note on Legal's suggestion?
    • VALUES
      • What value is missing from the list?
      • What value that is on the list shouldn't be there?
      • What value is on the list and should remain, but needs to be edited?
    • ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES (remind attendees that this is a statement of intent, and not the draft of the chapter; the MCDC wants to see if they're moving in the right direction)
      • Do you agree with the 5 stated intentions?
      • Are there entities whose roles and responsibilities you want to include in this chapter?
  • After the 30-min discussions in small groups, invite each room's reporter to share a summary of their discussions with the whole group.
  • After that you can invite individuals participants, if they have any additional comments, to share with the whole group before you wrap up the call with the next steps (below):
    • Community Consultation until December 18, share feedback via
      • The survey (multilingual, anonymous),
      • On the Meta talk page, in the MS Forum,
      • Fill out the anonymous survey (translations available in some languages)
      • Or via email to movementcharter@wikimedia.org
    • Consultation report to be published in January 2023
    • Drafts for the Roles & Responsibilities chapter, the Global Council chapter, and the Decision-Making chapter will be shared in Spring 2023
      • Several consultations rounds are planned for 2023
  • Thank all the participants for attending

After the conversation

  • After the session, keep the Etherpads opened for a few days, in case people have other comments. (Let them know in the meeting when you will close the Etherpads.)
  • After the session, start gathering notes, recording and others materials to start drafting the report. It is good to make your report 1 or 2 days after the conversations so that you won't forget any important details. The MCDC wants every feedback and comment. They are expecting every raw feedback.
  • Write the report on Meta-wiki using this template.
  • Communicate the report to the MCDC at movementcharter@wikimedia.org - include your language community in the subject line of the email