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