The meeting leader’s welcoming statement. (Five minutes.)

The meeting leader welcomes the group and states the purpose of the meeting. The agenda for the meeting is displayed and each table also has a copy of the agenda. The meeting leader should cover the agenda.

The statement should convey the following.

• A warm and happy welcome.
• The importance concerning the group’s task.
• The importance of each member’s contribution.
• The purpose of the meeting.
• Define occupant safety and traffic safety issues that are relevant to the meeting, including seat belts, air bags, child car seats, pedestrian issues, engineering issues, law enforcement issues, bicycle issues, motorcycle issues, unrestrained loads and people in the back of pick-up trucks, and any others.

The small group leader states the rules of brainstorming. (Five minutes.)

• All ideas are valid.
• No discussion of ideas.
• No judgments, pro or con, of ideas.
• Use short phrases.

These rules, along with three blank index cards, a priority vote card, and a pencil (golf pencils work best) are placed at every seat. (See samples at end of chapter.)

Think and write. (Two minutes.) small group leaders say, “We’ll start with a brief exercise to get our group’s creative juices flowing. We want to know, “Why should people practice good occupant safety habits? Take two minutes to record your thoughts on the index cards provided.”

The small group leader, starting with the person to his or her left, goes around the table and asks each participant to give one of the responses he or she has written on his or her index card. The small group leaders record the ideas on the flip chart page. Continue around the table until all ideas have been exhausted. (Six to 10 minutes.)

The small group leaders repeat the above process asking participants to answer, “Why don’t people practice good occupant safety habits?” (Eight to 12 minutes.)

Small group leaders say, “Now that we have warmed-up, let’s start the Nominal Group Technique process.”

• Present the question, “What can be done by the various sectors—business, places of worship, law enforcement, health care, schools and other community groups—to promote occupant safety during the 30-day campaign and beyond?”
• Direct the group to spend the next two minutes generating ideas in silence. They should write their responses in brief phrases or statements on the index cards provided.
• Ask the group to work quietly and independently.
• Small group leaders should model good behavior by working quietly themselves. Sanction those who disrupt the silent activity.

Benefits of round-robin recording:

• Equal participation in presentation of ideas; no single person can dominate the process.
• Depersonalization—the separation of ideas from the individual who presented it. Once the idea is written on the flip chart paper, it is the property of the entire group.
• Increased ability to deal with a large number of ideas.
• Tolerance for conflicting ideas.
• Group members are encouraged to mentally “hitch-hike” with ideas presented by other group members.
• Provides a written record.

The small group leaders should move around the table asking people for their ideas until all ideas are presented. Do not allow people to explain their statements, criticize others or make judgements.

In recording the results, the small group leaders should do the following:

• Record the results as rapidly as possible. This eliminates opportunities for group members to discuss and evaluate ideas.
• Record the ideas in the words used by the participant.
• Make the entire list visible to the group by tearing off the filled sheets and taping them to the walls.
• Letter each response, beginning with A, B, C, etc ... If there are more than 26 responses, double the letters AA, BB, CC, etc ...

Small group leaders should know the benefits of serial discussion to answer group questions about the process.

• Avoidance of focusing unduly on any particular idea or subset of ideas.
• Opportunity for clarification and elimination of misunderstanding.
• Opportunity to provide logic behind arguments.
• Opportunity to group similar ideas into one statement.

Small group leaders must keep the pace of the group smooth. Do not spend undue time on any particular issue. The small group leader should say, “We need to cover all of the ideas listed here and ensure everyone understands them. If we get bogged down on a particular issue, I’ll ask that we move forward and come back to it later.”

Small group leaders distribute a pre-printed index card with the numbers 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 written down the left hand side of the card.

Weight of Votes 	Issue Letter Assigned

	5			_______

	4			_______

	3			_______

	2			_______

	1			_______

Small group leaders ask the group to prioritize the ideas by placing the item letter (example A, B, C) that they think is most important next to the number. Effectively, they are assigning five points in favor of that issue (#5 being the highest). They should do the same for the 4, 3, 2, and 1 vote positions.

Ask the group to hand in their cards, shuffle them, then record their weights on the flip chart sheets with the lettered items. It is helpful to have someone read off the votes from the cards while the small group leaders record them.

After the tally is taken, allow the group to see what their top five positions are. No more than five responses will be accepted from each small group for consideration by the larger group.

Allow the small group members to enjoy refreshments. Small group leaders meet with the meeting leader to create a combined list of priorities. The final, combined list will be posted in the common area.

The most difficult part of this process is merging the small group responses into one large list. The meeting leader is the designated decision maker in determining if responses from different small groups are really saying the same thing. Each small group leader reports in turn to the meeting leader with their group’s top five items from the preliminary vote. The meeting leader begins preparation of the Community Master List.

This merging process should take no longer than 20 minutes.

The meeting leader will call on each small group leader to report on their group’s items in front of all the participants. The small group leaders should provide a brief explanation of their group’s ideas, if there are questions from the other tables.

All of the merged ideas are posted on flip chart pages and displayed in the common area. Each item on the merged list is separated from the one below it with a bold line (see example below).

___________________________________

Enforce the Law, Write More Tickets
___________________________________

More Positive Reinforcement
___________________________________

Conduct a Bicycle Rodeo
___________________________________

Each community participant is given five sticker dots and asked to place the dots next to items on the merged Community Master List that they feel is most important. The voter may place all votes (sticker dots) on one idea or break their vote up in any manner they deem appropriate. The meeting leader tells the group members to place their sticker dots clearly within the dividing lines between items on the Community Master List to ensure that it is clear to which idea the sticker dot(s) is supporting.

The meeting leader announces the results (the tally of sticker dots will be visually evident to participants), promises that the ideas will be researched thoroughly by the Community Partner Team, and thanks participants for their ideas and input.

The meeting leader also should indicate that the Community Partner Team will be contacting them regarding their ideas and input into the options generated by the process.

The Community Visioning Meeting will produce a large volume of information that needs to be organized to be useful. At the end of the meeting, collect all of the flip charts and separate them by “Why people do ... ,” “Why people don’t ... ” and suggested activities. Once completed, use a word processor to type a record of all the responses. All of the “do’s” should then be grouped in affinity clusters; that is, things that are related. For example, all of the “do” statements that deal with “being alive to take care of family members,” or “because it is the law.” Cut and paste those statements that you entered into the word processor under the appropriate heading.