Host a Climate Meetup

Want to organize a climate activism group in your community? Meetings are the bread and butter of organizing. They can be fun to host, but also a little intimidating if you've never done it before. Here's how to get started:

Set a time, date, and location so others in your community can find out and join in.

Invite People to your Meet-up: Were you involved in planning a previous 350 event? If so, invite your planning group and some of the participants to your meetup. Involve friends and neighbors as well. Try and make it a goal to invite 5 people who do different kind of work from you, who you don’t regularly collaborate with. This is a great time and opportunity to build up the climate movement. We suggest first sending out an email,
then following up with a phone call to ensure that people come.

Hold your Meetup! Your meet-up is a great time to think really big about your 10/10 work party, and growing your local movement for climate solutions. With about five months between the meet-up and the work party, you can reach out to lots of local partners, businesses, media outlets, and politicians, to make a big impact on 10/10 and beyond. Here are some suggested steps for running your meeting:

1. Introductions – it’s important to know who’s in the room and break the ice a little bit. Have everyone introduce themselves, and say how they ended up at the meeting, or something fun and quirky, like their favorite ice cream flavor. Make sure to pass around a signup sheet to collect everybody’s name, email address and phone number.

2. Tell the 350 Story – if you have a lot of new people to the 350 movement or climate change in general, you might want to start off by giving a short presentation about climate science, what 350 means, the local context, and the global plans for this year. You can download our audio slideshow of 350’s plans for 2010 here: www.350.
org/audio-slideshow or a powerpoint presentation you can customize here: www.350.org/resources.

3. Have a brainstorm – This is the fun part - it’s time to think big about what your group can achieve this year. To get you started, we have a few videos we suggest you watch for inspiration about how groups of citizens have pulled off some major change locally. See the bottom of this page for the titles and links. Here are some questions to guide your brainstorming and planning discussion - be sure to take notes!

• Does our town or city have an existing Climate Action Plan, or an existing commitment to reduce emissions? Do we know what’s in this plan, and how it is being implemented?
• If no plan exists, how might our 10/10 project help kick off a longer-term community climate action plan?
• What local partners can we contact to help us? Is there a local construction company that would donate materials? A local library, school, or church, that might host an event? A local 10:10 initiative, Transition Town or other organizations that focuses on ‘getting to work’?
• What types of projects that we can implement would make the most local impact on a single day? Community gardens, solar panel installations, a new bike path, tree-planting? Check out wiki.350.org for how-to guides contributed by people like you, join up, and add your own!
• What should our first steps be?

4. Make sure everyone has a job – this is key, so that everyone feels committed and responsible to the group. Possible jobs include reaching out to specific partners or types of groups, researching the feasibility of different 10/10 project ideas, managing communications to friends and neighbors and the press, and logistics.

5. Set your next meeting time – decide before you leave where and when you’ll hold your next meeting – set a regular time and place if you can!

End with a song, dance, or something fun – have fun with this new group of organizing friends –plus, it’ll make you all more excited for the next one.

Report Back: Once you come up with ideas, be sure and edit your 10/10 event page. If you haven’t yet signed up your work party, please do it right away! Be sure to follow up with everyone who participated in your meeting to thank them for coming by phone or email, send them the notes, and remind them about the time and date of your
next get-together.

Helpful materials for your first meeting

Download this page in PDF form - PDF

10-step Plan for 10/10/10 - PDF
2010 350.org Brochure - PDF
10/10/10 Poster - PDF (Letter) (A4)
Sign-up Sheet - PDF
2010 350.org Presentation - PPT (PPT Coming Soon!)
What is 10:10? - PDF