In episode 14 of season 2, Emma shared the minutes from our first internal meeting. This was huge progress, and really took a lot of time to pull off and a lot of energy to figure out how to do. We have been working on this for over a year with our therapist, and then the last month in group as well. Our first big effort as a system was this meeting about meetings as we planned what our meetings would look like, and how we would gather people to come to the meetings. It was really a lot of work! It was also exhausting, and we slept for almost twenty hours after our first meeting.

But here’s what Molly’s Meeting Minutes looked like:

You can see it was fairly simple in the beginning, just noting the date and where we were and who was present. We also noted a few that watched without participating. The main section, then, was the actual minutes from the meeting, which Molly typed as they happened. At the close of the meeting, there were assignments made for everyone attending, as well as a list of topics brainstormed to cover at the next meeting.

Maybe that gives you some simple ideas for starting meetings for your system?

Be sure that everyone is invited, even if they cannot come!

It’s the same for those who do not wish to come - they are still invited, even if they don’t want to come.

But no one has to come. Everyone always has a choice. That’s a really important thing for everyone to know.