Guide for Local Vegetarian Groups

Making Your Group More Effective

Starting a local group, getting committed volunteers, making tasks manageable, sharing decision-making, running effective meetings, preventing fossilization, remembering why we are here

If you do not have a local vegetarian society but want to start one, first plan an event you can publicize. A potluck, a video on vegetarianism, or both, are easy to arrange. Look for a free or low-cost location for your event. If you already know several vegetarians, you can invite them and urge them to bring interested friends. Photocopy an announcement and post it on bulletin boards at natural food stores, health clubs, shopping centers, colleges, and any other place interested people might see it. Send notices to local newspapers and radio and television stations. Write to the North American Vegetarian Society and the Vegetarian Resource Group and ask them to share names in nearby postal zones. Send out post cards announcing your event. You and the people who attend can decide what kind of activities to have in the future.

Local groups usually have potlucks, maybe put out a newsletter, maybe even do the occasional tabling event. A few people are doing a lot of the work; there are some who will occasionally do something or other for you, but are sort of hanging on at the sidelines. There are also people who show up at the potlucks, are happy to pay their dues and be able to meet other vegetarians--but are not ready to become dedicated activists. What now? How can you improve on this situation?

1. Get committed volunteers

This is the number one problem of local groups. To get volunteers, you need to define the tasks they will undertake, recruit the volunteers, and keep them.

Define as precisely as possible what the task is. This does not need to be extensive; a short list of basic functions is all that is needed. For examples, see the Guidelines for Potluck Supervisors and Guidelines for Tabling.

To recruit volunteers, you need to advertise and talk to people. If you need an outreach coordinator, mention this in your conversations. Write a short article for the newsletter describing your needs. If no one responds, run the article again and keep talking about it with others. If you get more than one volunteer for a position, you're in luck; you can choose the most qualified or persuade them to share the work.

Reward your volunteers. Give them thanks, recognition in the newsletter, or some benefit like a free dinner, a year's free membership, or a free book or T-shirt. Large groups may find it useful to have a "volunteer coordinator" who stays in contact with the leaders of the group concerning the recruitment and placement of other volunteers.

2. Make tasks manageable

Just a few people are doing all the work! How many times have we heard this? You need to maintain a balance among the volunteers available. True, some will have more time and some will have less, and we need to accept this. But to distribute the work as evenly as possible, it is necessary to break down tasks into more manageable proportions.

There is some good news: this is, paradoxically, most likely to be a problem in a group which is growing and successful. In a small group with perhaps a few dozen members, it is quite possible for one person to be president, plan the monthly potluck, write the checks, and still have time to do the newsletter or the occasional tabling event. If this person is really good, though, the group will be successful, membership will increase, the newsletter will get longer, and the person's workload will increase. Soon, this wonderful person who does everything will feel overburdened and burnout will loom.

In the Vegetarian Society of Colorado, there was once a position known as "Metro Denver coordinator." But Metro Denver is basically one-third of the entire state, and this position became increasingly difficult to fill. Finally it was broken down into two positions, but even these were too much, and today we have four potluck coordinators (sharing duties), one of whom is also the outreach coordinator, and one volunteer coordinator. This is an example of how a "hard-to-fill" position can be broken down into more manageable sizes: a position once filled by one person is now filled by five.

Another approach is the "committee" approach: someone is in charge, but they have helpers. If the newsletter is growing into too much of a task for one person, it cannot be effectively delegated among equal co-editors--there is still going to be one newsletter going out. But if you can find someone to do the recipes, another person to prepare the calendar, a third to handle the mailing, the editor's task becomes more manageable.

3. Share decision-making

Keep your volunteers by listening to what they say. People who are active in the vegetarian movement want to be an integral part of a group. They want to be involved. You don't persuade people to become involved in your group by just telling them what to do, but by involving them in the decision-making process. That is what democracy is all about. If you have more than just a few people volunteering, you will probably want to have a "board of directors" or other formal decision-making group. We feel that local vegetarian groups work best with "open leadership" in a democratic framework: the members should elect a board of directors, and then the board of directors elects officers or runs the group directly. (Alternatively, some groups have the membership elect the officers directly.) A small group with a dozen or so members will not usually need a working board of directors, but as groups get larger, it is necessary to get used to such things.

This does not mean that you let volunteers do just anything. Through inexperience, sometimes volunteers will make (or want to make) bad decisions. We have seen merchandise sold at below its cost, tabling events planned and then cancelled at the last minute, pamphlets published with typographical and other errors, and other problems. That is the purpose of having a leadership group--so it can review or determine how things are done and correct problems or undertake new initiatives. Everyone should strive to be a team player. This is a cliche, but it is also very true. We have to talk to each other, run things past each other, and in general stay in touch if we want to get things done and avoid burnout.

4. Run effective meetings

Meetings are an inevitable part of the decision-making process. One of the most important aspects of meetings is to adopt an agenda and stick to it. Long meetings, excessive attention to detail, or domination of the meeting by one or two "talkers" will put everyone else to sleep. At the outset the group should go over a "laundry list" of items and decide what they want to concentrate on during the meeting. In fact, one useful technique some have adopted is for the group to agree on a time limit to each agenda item. When the time is up, the secretary (or some other appropriate person) should raise their hand and point out that the time has expired. The group can then agree how much additional time is needed.

The president or chairperson should insure that everyone be allowed to participate. The meeting should not be taken over by a private discussion between two people which could be conducted later; nor is it necessary for the meeting to decide all matters--delegate whenever possible.

5. Stir things up

Is your group stagnating or fossilized? If you are not experiencing any of the problems mentioned above, it may be! Signs of stagnation include: the same person has been President for the past fifteen years; the leadership group (or members) are all the same age and are all personal friends; only one or two people are doing all the work, and they're not complaining. This is dangerous because it may mean that the group is not going anywhere. Of course, it may also mean that you're out in the middle of a rural area surrounded by a population of mostly cattle ranchers. But if you're in an urban area where you know there are plenty of other vegetarians, some reflection may be in order. Consider recruiting people to help with the work of the local group, and rotate the leadership positions at least occasionally. It's often not power-hungry leaders that create "dictatorships"--sometimes it's the followers who are eager to abandon responsibility. Bring new people in, and stir things up.

6. Remember why we are here

A local vegetarian group is democratic, but it is also always a vegetarian group. While the chances of it happening are small, it has been known for vegetarian groups to be weakened because nonvegetarians were in leadership positions. Most vegetarian groups avoid this by putting a specific clause in the bylaws stating that only vegetarians can vote or hold office in the group. There are so many people who are now "semi-vegetarian" that it is tempting to compromise one's principles and broaden one's base. Of course we should encourage nonvegetarians to join our groups and to come to our meetings--that's part of how we "sell" our message. But we do not want to dilute or deny a key part of our message, or allow the group to be taken over by those who are not fully committed to vegetarianism. Someone needs to be telling the truth about a meat-oriented diet--and that's us. We should always remember why we are here and why we are doing what we are doing. We are not working for any organization or person, but for a vegetarian world.

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