Teen Democrats

Concept Paper

Concerning Resumption of THE ISSUES FORUM

of the Henderson County Democratic Party

Purpose: To provide thinking regarding resumption of the Issues Forum of the Henderson County Democratic Party. At the planning meeting at party headquarters on Tuesday, March 25 at 6:30 p.m., this paper can serve as an agenda for group discussion and decision making.

After providing an issue below, I sometimes indicate my preference. Of course, I will have only one vote at the planning meeting.

1. Should we resume the Issues Forum?

2. If so, when and how often should it occur? I lean toward once or twice a month at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays. I’m tied up on the 2^nd Tuesdays and all Thursday evenings. I’m very sure that there are more than enough topics to meet more than once a month. Along with this goes the question of location. If the forum works especially well, we may wish to move to a larger room than the party headquarters.

3. What leadership structure should we have? I lean toward having co-chairs and possibly a steering committee that would help with logistics and arranging presenters.

4. How will issues be selected? We could have folks bring several possible topics to the planning committee. We could have a show of hands on those issues, which would produce a working list of good topics from the first. Of course, the feasibility of a topic would depend some on the availability of a good presenter. Folks may have other approaches to programs and presenting. For example, we might have a “meet the candidates” meeting.

Here’s an unconventional idea: We could have “presentation issues” with strong presenters on the first Tuesday of the month and have “discussion issues” without presenters on the third Tuesday of the month. While you might assume that the sessions with presenters would consistently be the best, I know from extensive experience with discussion groups that, if you have a good topic/issue, an entirely discussion session can be excellent. The participants would have incentive to come well prepared to make meaningful contributions. Here are two examples of “discussion issue” topics: “How well is democracy working in the U.S.?” “How can the social justice of U.S. government and society be meaningfully increased?” (Social justice can be broken up to provide many sub-issues.)

5. What should be the balance between presenting and discussion? I prefer having a person with expertise or a strong fund of information present for 15 to 20 minutes, followed by questions and discussion. If we have an especially strong presenter on a difficult subject, there might be more presentation and questions.

6. How will presenters be selected and recruited? Instead of having people volunteer to present, we could have participants nominate presenters. I think there should be sound evidence that the presenter has expertise or a very extensive collection of ideas and information. Of course, we could have two co-presenters or a panel.

7. Should presenters be expected to have any type of handout for attendees? My experience is that it helps for presenters to have maybe a one- or two-page handout presenting information that would help attendees, such as crucial definitions, legal principles, outline, issues, etc.

8. How should facilitation be handled? My inclination is to have the presenter serve effectively as the facilitator, unless she or he wanted to have someone else have that role.

9. How should recognition of folks for questions or comments be handled? An excellent church adult discussion group I attended has a person who writes down the names of people in the order in which they raise their hands. They are recognized in that order. Regardless, I think we should have a strong expectation that folks will not “have the floor” significantly more than their fair share of available discussion time.

10. Who will serve in any leadership positions?

11. How should we handle refreshments? Since 6:30 p.m. is in the dinner hour for some folks, should we sometimes provide enough hors d’oeuvres to constitute a light supper? How should the cost of refreshments be handled?

By John M. Memory, J.D., Ph.D.

jmemory@mchsi.com

828, 674-9122

311 E. Price St.

Hendersonville, NC 28739

Updated 03/24/2008