What is it?

• A meeting organised on a specific topic, to share information and discuss this topic with people. It can consist of discussions, lectures and other activities such as games or film projections.

When to use it? 

• At the beginning of community engagement: to share information with the communities, to discuss the aims of the engagement and question the interest of the communities for participating, to gain information on specific aspects/themes.
• During the process of community engagement, to allow different opinions to come up.
• At the end of the process of community engagement: to share and discuss results, to evaluate the process, to agree on how to communicate the findings to an external audience.

 Number of people

• Large group of people (from 10 to 40 approximately) 

Time

• 2 to 5 hours

Benefits

• To actively involve a large group of people in reflecting over a specific theme.
• To give people information on a specific theme and to receive feedback and information from them as well.
• To foster discussion among participants on that theme, and to confront different views and perspectives.
• It is an effective process to reach out to a wider group of people.

Limitations

• Shy people might not participate actively in discussions.
• Can demand a lot of preparation and organisation.