Big gatherings

Anyone can organise a public gathering under the banner of Your Party — after all, it's your party. You might organise one for...

• People in the same neighbourhood or community.
• Parents and teachers in your local schools.
• People in the same industry or profession.

Run your own big meeting

Some quick tips for organising great meetings

• Choose a venue to fit the purpose of the event and number of participants (too roomy = dead atmosphere / too tight = noisy)
• Define clear rules for the space to keep people safe(e.g. “all people are welcome but not all behaviours”).
• Create as many opportunities for quality human connection as possible (e.g. icebreakers).
• Include lots of breaks (note: more time for human connection and unstructured chats).
• Include a variation of activities to keep the energy high (e.g. mix in sitting with standing and movement).
• Serve food & drink. Everyone has to make sacrifices to attend meetings, but for many, especially at this rotten time, their day-to-day survival and needs will always come first. Make a meal part of the meeting, and politics and life become intertwined on the road to deeper solidarity.
• Offer childcare. Funded childcare at all local meetings allows people for whom a babysitter is a luxury to attend. As with food, this brings communities together.
• Carefully choose the mechanism for making decisions (e.g. by consensus or voting, or by a combination of the two, or another way) and its implications.
• Allow at least 30 minutes at the end for people to self-organise to start taking action on their decisions or planning the next meeting.

Some ideas about what to discuss at your meeting

1. Diagnosis of the Present

The party’s foundations must be rooted in people’s lived experience. This is about more than just gathering grievances. It’s about building solidarity through stories, connecting struggles that at first seem isolated, and arriving at a collective understanding of the problems with the society we live in. This will give the party solid ground to build on.

2. Vision & values

A party must articulate the society it wants to build. Members should be the ones to imagine that horizon and define the values that underpin it. A clear vision and agreed values provide a compass to Your Party. This also ensures that when trade-offs are inevitably necessary in the short term, everyone knows that it is part of a broader plan to get us to where we need to be.

3. Party culture

How we relate to one another will shape everything that follows. If we’re serious about building something new, then we must decide together what kind of movement we want to be part of. By making culture a conscious choice, not an accident, members can co-create healthy norms and practices that will sustain the movement for the long haul, even through attempts to divide and destroy us.

4. Guiding principles + red lines

Every project needs clarity about what it stands for and what it won’t compromise on. These can be worked out collectively through deliberation. By setting out our guiding principles together, we give the leadership an easy job of navigating complex situations. Additionally, this is an opportunity for difficult conversations (e.g. around Zionism) to be held in a safe and supported environment; there is no reason why these can’t be a highly productive opportunity for learning and increasing our unity together.

5. Accountability and party operations

That the leadership will follow the will of the membership at all times should not be taken for granted. That’s why the movement should establish how it plans to hold the leadership to account, especially in instances when red lines might be crossed. With clear mechanisms for feedback established, members can make criticism in a way that doesn’t create opportunities for reactionaries to exploit to decrease our collective unity.

Examples of real life Your Party gatherings

Below, you can see reports, explanations and videos of how other Your Party groups have run their public meetings. Good luck!

How Leicester ran its public meeting

In Leicester we ran an assembly in early July. Initially we had a 3 speakers to set the scene. Shockat Adam, Claudia Webbe and Tom Barker (UNISON NEC). this was kept as short as possible. People dont want another event where they are talked at. However it is nice to hear from figures like that. Also got people through the door (which was necessary before the launch of yourparty).

The next part was to split people into different groups. Ideally no more than 8. Each group had a facilitator and were given basic guidance on what to raise as issues to deal with. 1) Identify something really personal. 2) Something local 3) Something national. The groups had about 30 minutes to discuss. Facilitators then came together while everyone was on a break (food was provided, tea cakes go down well). They brought together themes. At end of the break, themes were presented to the whole assembly. At which point, further discussion was had on what was important to try and address together.

This approach went down really well. We got half the audience to raise their hands to volunteer for more things like that. We also got lots of people donating to pay for future events. Our next meeting is to formalise the group somewhat and start putting together working groups.

Watch Leeds' public meeting

over 150 people came together with determination and hope.

The event began with a challenge about who was running the meeting and whether they belonged to other parties, but the spirit of those attending quickly rose above factionalism.

What followed was a powerful discussion on grassroots democracy, fighting austerity, standing with Palestine and resisting fascism on our streets. including a callout for an AF rally

This video captures the energy of ordinary people organising for change and the sense that Your Party can grow fast.

How Stoke and Newcastle ran their public meeting

We tried to keep the top table really light touch, so we had a national update, a 30 second welcome video from ZS and just an explanation of who and how the event was organised. We then essentially had three sessions to the evening, largely organising in 10 breakout groups of 10. The first was on the five things you’d change nationally and internationally; the second was on the five things you’d change locally; and the last one was what next steps would you like from YP locally.

Each 15-20 min breakout group was followed by a lightening round where we would ask folks to give us their most important point of the discussion. Some groups were having votes to decide which point they wanted to share, ha! We had food at the event, we organised car shares so people could get home because the buses don’t work past 9pm in Stoke and we had folks recording the meeting and doing interviews so we have some great video content for online.

We also put a call out for a volunteer interim committee and had 25 people sign up so that’s going to be interesting, but I think it was necessary. All in all, it was a great first step, people really loved the vibe and the participatory nature of it all, and there was a clear demonstration of non-negotiables in the room, particularly over Palestine and anti-racism.

Watch Sheffield's public meeting

120 people came to Preston's public meeting

Read more on their Facebook page