It’s the antidote to “I wish I’d known about that!”

Ever find out about an event or project in your town only after it was happening?

Ever wish you could have helped with something or offered some insight, if you only knew it was coming?

You want to collaborate more with local and regional organizations, but you can’t possibly know everything that’s going on.

Even in a small town, we don’t keep each other informed like you’d think.

Here’s the simple solution:

Why not just get folks together and compare organization calendars once a month or so?

Keep it simple:

• Invite some local people to coffee.
• Ask them to bring their groups’ calendars.
• Go somewhere together and get some coffee.
• Let each person go over their group’s calendar and tell what they have going on.

That’s all. Just share coffee and calendars.

 

Who to invite:

Start with people who are part of any organizations related to your ideas. Think of arts or history groups, town or county government, the chamber of commerce, or schools. You can start with a few and grow over time. Reach out to all kinds of community groups, local boards, churches, organizations, clubs, and everyone. Have them bring their calendars, too.

Yes, declare it as an official public meeting of government groups if the law requires. Whatever you need to do to stay legal but keep the coffee discussion itself informal.

Get out of the meeting room! Go grab coffee from a local coffee shop or get cool drinks at the soda fountain. Go anywhere that feels friendly and open to conversations.  

What to talk about:

The only goals (at first) are to share what you have planned and get to know each other better. Coffee and calendars.

 

Later, people will naturally start talking about maybe cooperating, or doing shared projects, or noticing when they have shared goals. Then, even later, maybe people can talk about collaborating in bigger ways.

It will all start with just a few folks sitting down for “Coffee and Calendars.”

I like to ask people to share their name, organization, and one thing folks in the room may not know about them, or their organization. It’s a good icebreaker, and you get a chance to know someone better.

Avoid this common trap:

Don’t try to replace the in-person get-together with a combined online calendar.

The calendar is not the goal. The conversation is the goal.

This is coffee and calendars, not another meeting.

 

Your homework:

Invite one person who is working on good things in your town to join you for Coffee and Calendars. Forward this story to them and suggest a specific day next week to get together.

Get your coffee to go and take the conversation anywhere outside the meeting room. How about a local park, the children’s room at the local library, or on benches downtown?

This is one of our favorite ideas because it’s so practical, easy to do, and makes a real difference. At SaveYour.Town we specialize in practical steps like these that you can put into action right away to shape a better future for your community.

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