Section 4 | Group Discussions

These can be very successful meetings that are fairly simple to set up, since you don't need to arrange an outside speaker. You simply come up with an interesting topic such as "Death and Dying in the Lives of Freethinkers" or "Should America End the War on Drugs?" and then prepare several specific questions about that topic. It's a good idea to print out several copies of the questions. You can find discussion question ideas at [www.secularstudents.org/MeetingDiscussionQuestions]. You may need to adjust your discussion based on the size of the group.

• Small meetings (about 12 people or less) can sit in a circle and discuss the questions one by one. If a larger group of students attend, consider setting up some initial discussion rules, like hand raising or time limits.
• Large meetings (more than 20 people) should be split up into small circles and discuss different questions - later going back into one big circle and telling the whole group what their question was and how they answered it.
• If you put people in groups, mix them up so everyone isn't with his/her friends! For example you could hand members a playing card when they enter and have the different suits group together.
• If you have 35+ people you are going to need a large room or two separate rooms. It is going to get too noisy otherwise.

Here are some other things to keep in mind:

• People aren't going to stay on topic. Don't worry about it. The point is more to get people talking than to force them to talk about anything in particular.
• Instead of cold questions, try doing an activity to get people talking. Examples: rank common words (such as atheist, agnostic, freethinker, etc.) based on positive and negative connotations. People will likely have trouble getting a consensus on this in their group. Another option is to have groups make up skits and perform them about various things, such as how to answer common questions nonbelievers get, how to and how not to tell your parents, etc.
• Ask SSA for ideas and questions for group discussions-we have lots!

What has been your most successful meeting?

Michael Amini of the Secular Student Union of the University of Washington:

"At the SSU, we've had a number of different kinds of meetings, with varying degrees of success. Last year, most of the meetings were discussion meetings. We had an "Ask" series, where each week, we would bring representatives from varying religious groups for a discussion. The purpose of the meetings was not to debate, but to gain a factual understanding of what people believe from their own perspective. We had Mormons, Hindus, Jews, Christians, Biblical Literalist Christians, and Muslims. These meetings were probably the most well-attended of the year.

Michael Amini