This is one of a series of guides for collaborative environmental research and advocacy projects. Setting Goals starts with listening to individual interests and priorities and builds toward establishing a shared, group agenda. This guide covers how to do this with individuals who have each identified that they want to do "something" related to gardening in the coming year. NB: this activity could be generalized to include other types of environmental investigation such as documentation, management, monitoring, etc.

Planning this event

Ahead of time:

• Pick a time for a 2 hour session that is convenient for the most people involved
• Find a space, it may be useful to be indoors with enough chairs, restrooms, and some wall space, etc
• Send invites two weeks to a month in advance

Materials to have on hand:

• If available, the group's mental map from the Start Here activity.
• post-it notes or regular paper cut into smaller pieces and stacked.
• if using paper, bring tape
• large chart paper or a roll of paper
• consider nametags

Activity 1: Hello and Introductions!

Go around the room with everyone saying their name and introducing themselves in a sentence. Going up to three or four sentences is OK, use your judgement regarding the time you have available and the importance of hearing from everyone, because understanding a bit about where everyone is coming from is important to this activity.

Activity 2: My goals Our goals

Note: this activity is organized so that during different moments in this activity people may be doing individual work, then coming together in small groups, and then discussing as an entire group. This style is sometimes referred to as "One, Some, Many."

As facilitator, you may want to respectfully capture some photos of people during the activities.

ONE: People write out their ideas on their own on post-it notes / small pieces of paper. Pass out post-it notes / small pieces of paper and ask the group "what are you interested in doing with the garden project this year?" Suggest that they write no more than 3, but some might not be able to restrain themselves. As people get started, if it seems like prompts would help, you could suggest any of the following questions to consider:

• What are we going to plant?
• How much do we want to grow of these plants?
• Who to we want to visit the garden?
• Who do we want to help with the garden?
• Who hasn't participated that we want to participate?
• What animals do we want to visit the garden?
• What kinds of fun do we want to have in the garden?
• other good things?

SOME: People share ideas with one or two neighbors (stay seated). While they do this, hang a large piece of paper on the wall with the headline "GOALS"

MANY: Share amongst themselves as a whole group. Each person stands up and reads their goals and sticks them on the wall-paper. As facilitator, looks at which goals are overlapping and move them near each other. Once everyone is done, observe which goals are widely held.

Activity 3: Choosing which goals to measure progress toward

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other sandbox stuff

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