Warm up and Debriefs
Start meetings with some kind of warm up.  This gets everyone talking, reminds people what the meeting is about, and can set a nice tone. The warm-up functions as an entrance hall, giving everyone a chance to leave outsides interests at the door.  The warm-up focuses the group on the task of having a good meeting.  Our favorite warm ups give everyone an opportunity to speak briefly, even only with their "elbow neighbor."

Ask members to share with a neighbor, or with entire group, things like those listed below.  It is not necessary to always "go around the room" and give everyone "air time," especially when time is short, or with a large group.  Having members share with a neighbor or in a small group of neighbors is also quite effective. Hint:  give participants time to think of their answer, and ask them to practice it internally, to practice brevity.

    a. What do you expect to get out of this meeting?
    b. How do you feel about this meeting?  Are you glad to be here?
    c. Name something that you remember from the last meeting.
    d. Name something you are especially thankful for, or an act of kindness you observed today.
    e.  Recall a nice moment in your classroom today.
    f.  Name something that you personally can contribute to the meeting. 
    (examples:  ideas, opinions, being a good listener, positive vibes, knowledge and expertise in the area of consideration, etc.)
More extensive warm ups and sometimes called "inclusion strategies."
    g.  "Like Me!"  (People stand up when the facilitator says a category into which they fall, such as "grandparents,"  "elementary school teacher," or "first year teacher.")
    h.  Grounding:  Participants say their name, role, how they fell about being here, and an expectation for the meeting. 
    i.  Visual Paragraph:  Participants stand in different places to make different points.  (For example, each corner of the room could present a different opinion; or, participants could line up in the order of the years of teaching experience.
Some fun "ice breaker" type warm ups.  But be careful that longer warm ups don't use too much of the meeting time.  These might be for a half day retreat, for example, rather than a 45 minute meeting.
j.  Position in the family:  Divide the group by those who were first-born, middle child, and baby/only child, and ask them to discuss what they liked best and least about their position.
k.  Scavenger Hunt:  Make up a list of ten questions about little know facts (e.g., How many red stripes on the American flag?  What is our administrator's favorite food?) and then work in small groups for 5 minutes to find the answers.
l.  "Touch Pink"  Ask the group members to move about the room and find someone to touch someone with certain characteristics that are called out by the facilitator.  (Examples:  someone wearing pink, a grand parent, a science teacher, someone who has been to China, etc.)
Item pre-brief:  a warm-up for a particularly difficult item in an agenda.  (Example:  before a difficult item the group might want to do a "best hopes/worst fear" exercise.)

Item de-brief:  after a very important item don't wait until the end of the meeting to do an internal debrief.  This allows the facilitator to confirm everyone's understanding and acceptance of the decision.

End the meeting with a de-brief.  Ask members to share with each other in small groups or with the group.   We feel it's better for people to share any negative feelings here in the meeting rather than outside in the parking lot.  And we certainly want to know what we can do better next time, who the strong supporters are, and who the saboteurs might be!
    Examples of short debriefs. 
    a. How do you feel about today's meeting?
    b. Did you get a chance to make your opinions known?
    c. Is there anything you wished the group had done that was not done?
    d. Is there anything you can do before the next meeting?
    e. "I am happy that _____________"
    f.  "I wish  _______________"
    g.  "The main thing I learned today was _____________________"
    h.  "What did we learn?"
    i.  "What are some things we did today that enhanced our group culture?"
    j.  "When did you feel distressed or anxious in today's meeting?"

    More examples of debriefs:
    Content Processing
    1. What words or phrases do you recall from the presentation?
    2. What where some of the key ideas or main points of the presentation (or meeting, or lesson?)
    3. Where did you get interested or intrigued, or surprised?
    4. What points seemed difficult to grasp?  With which ideas did you struggle?
    5. What aspects of the material made sense to you out of your own experience?
    6. What are some questions that arose from this presentation?

    Meeting Processing
    7. What have we accomplished during our meeting today?
    8. What did we not accomplish?  Did the meeting meet your expectations?
    9. What was helpful for you personally today?
    10. Where did you, or where did we, struggle in this meeting?
    11. What were things that we did that help us reach our objective?
    12. How would you improve the way we hold a meeting?
    13. How would you tell someone else what really happened in this meeting today?
    14. How easy or difficult was it for us to get started?
    15. How much of our meeting was on track?  Off track?  What does that tell us?
    16. What factors seem to affect the quality of our meeting?
    17. If we were to set this meeting to music, what kind of music might that be?
    18. How you feel now that the meeting is over? (Optimistic?  Discouraged? Bored? Frustrated?  Excited?  Etc.)
    19. What are some things our team did today that displayed helpful teamwork?
    20. What are some things our team did today that enabled the task to get done?
    21. What are some meeting skills that we need to work on?
    22. Did we schedule enough time to accomplish our goals for the meeting?

    Note: In a large group the comments might be only at the table of four, or perhaps just with a neighbor, followed by a few volunteers who wish to share their thoughts with the large group.
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