Do you want to organize Socrates Cafe yourself? We prepared agenda of the meetup with some tips to get you started:

1. welcome the attendees

• it is an open discussion based on democratic principles
• we will pick a topic together via voting
• the meetup will take 2h with 10 min break in the middle

2. explain the rules

• we agree on a set of rules so everyone will be able to participate
• we avoid the use of „smart words” – difficult terms that might not be understood by everyone,
• we talk from our own perspective — avoiding references to authorities and works of culture
• there’s a queue, if you want to speak, we will add you in the queue and you will have your turn
• ad vocem: you can ask a person that’s currently speaking for explanation or elaboration of a fragment of their statement
• during the discussion we are all equal, this is why there are no doctors or professors, we refer to each other by name
• the goal of the discussion is to look at the topic from different perspectives and leave the discussion with new questions

3. introduction round (first names only)

• it’s useful to note names of the attendees, it’s helpful in managing the queue

4. question time

• anyone can propose a topic
• topics should be in a form of a question
• topics should be universal
• it’s good to present the group with example topics from previous discussions
• there’s an urban legend that the topic proposed by first timers usually wins 😉

5. voting

• the topic is chosen in 2 rounds of voting
• in first round everyone can vote for any number of topics
• we choose 2 topics with the highest number of votes for the second round
• in the second round everyone has only one vote

6. read the topic that won and open the discussion

• make sure that the rules are followed
• make sure the queue is respected