First General Assembly Guide

Published v0.1

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v0.1 — Drafted May 2026

Purpose of This Document

This document walks a Seed Team through convening, running, and documenting the first General Assembly (GA) of a new FREE chapter. The first GA is where the chapter formally begins as a community. Everything before this moment has been preparation. Everything after is the chapter living its own life.

Read F1, P1, and P2 before this document.

What the First General Assembly Is

The first General Assembly is the first open meeting of everyone who responded to the first public event and wants to keep meeting. It is the moment where the Seed Team steps from “convening” toward “facilitating,” and where the broader community begins to take ownership of the chapter.

The first GA has one essential purpose: to gather voice. The Seed Team does not arrive at this meeting with a finished chapter to ratify. The Seed Team arrives with an invitation, a set of open questions, and the responsibility to make sure every person in the room is heard.

The decisions that will shape the chapter (purpose, values, decision-making methods, leadership structure) are not made at the first GA. They are seeded at the first GA. The actual adoption happens at the second GA. This pacing matters: it gives the broader community a chance to absorb what is being built, contribute to it, and feel ownership over it before being asked to commit.

What the First GA Is Not

The first GA is not a debate about whether FREE’s frame is correct. People who came to the first public event and signed up have already self-selected into the frame. The first GA assumes the frame and moves to the question of what this specific local chapter will be.

The first GA is not a strategy session. The chapter does not yet exist as a deciding body. Strategy comes later, after the chapter has constituted itself.

The first GA is not a place for the Seed Team to deliver a finished plan. A finished plan delivered at the first GA tells the broader community that the Seed Team has already decided and is now informing them. This kills participation and trust.

Scheduling the First GA

The first GA should happen between two and four weeks after the first public event. Sooner than two weeks does not give attendees enough time to absorb the event and decide to come back. Later than four weeks loses momentum.

Common scheduling choices:

A weekday evening (6:30 or 7:00 PM start), if the public event was also a weekday evening
A weekend afternoon, if that works better for the local community
The same day of the week as the intended ongoing GA cadence, if possible, to begin establishing the rhythm

The location matters less than the consistency. A community room, a faith space, a back room of a sympathetic venue, or even a private home if the group is small enough (10 to 20 people) all work. Avoid loud bars or restaurants where conversation is difficult.

Confirm the location a week in advance and send a reminder email to everyone on the sign-up list 48 hours before, with location, time, and a sentence about what to expect.

Who Attends

Everyone who signed up at the first public event is invited. Anyone they bring is welcome. The first GA is intentionally open.

Realistic attendance ranges:

If the first public event drew 40 to 60 people with 20 to 30 sign-ups, expect 10 to 18 at the first GA
If the first public event drew 80 to 150 people with 40 to 60 sign-ups, expect 20 to 35 at the first GA
Higher conversion rates are possible with strong personal follow-up between the public event and the first GA

If attendance is significantly lower than expected, that is information. The chapter is starting smaller. This does not mean failure; it means the founding group is smaller and the work of growing it will be more deliberate in the coming weeks.

Roles for the First GA

The first GA needs at least three roles, ideally held by different Seed Team members:

Facilitator

Holds the agenda, keeps the meeting moving, calls on people, manages time. The facilitator is not the most important voice in the room; the facilitator is the person who makes sure every other voice gets heard.

Stack-Keeper

Tracks the order of people who want to speak (the “stack”) and calls them in order. This role is essential in any meeting larger than eight or ten people. Without a stack-keeper, the loudest voices dominate and quieter voices disappear.

Note-Taker

Records the meeting: who attended (first name and any relevant context), the major points raised in each agenda section, any decisions made, any commitments people made for follow-up. The note-taker’s notes become the synopsis that gets shared with the chapter and with the FREE network. See X1 (Documentation Standards) for the synopsis format.

If the meeting is being recorded (with explicit consent of all attendees), the note-taker can focus on commitments and decisions rather than transcription. Tulsa and several other chapters use both: a recording for accuracy and a human note-taker for synthesis.

Suggested Agenda

Total time: 90 to 120 minutes.

1. Welcome and Framing (10 minutes)

A Seed Team member welcomes everyone, briefly acknowledges the first public event and what it surfaced, and frames the purpose of this meeting: to gather voice and begin the work of founding the chapter together.

Name the structure explicitly: “Today we are not making decisions. We are listening to each other, surfacing what we want this chapter to be, and identifying volunteers to help draft our founding documents before the next assembly. At our second assembly, we will review those drafts together and decide as a group.”

Briefly introduce the Seed Team and acknowledge that the Seed Team’s role is temporary: they convened this moment, and the chapter’s direction will be set by everyone in the room.

2. Introductions Round (20 to 30 minutes)

Each person in the room introduces themselves with: name, neighborhood or part of town, and one short sentence on why they came back tonight. Keep introductions tight (30 to 45 seconds each).

If the room has more than 20 people, consider breaking into small groups of 4 to 6 for introductions, with one person from each small group reporting back two or three highlights to the full room.

The purpose of this section is twofold: people need to see each other and feel the room, and the Seed Team needs to hear who is here and what brought them.

3. Why Are We Gathering (15 to 20 minutes)

Open discussion question: “What brought you back tonight? What are you hoping this chapter can be?”

The facilitator opens the floor. The stack-keeper tracks who wants to speak. The note-taker captures the major themes.

Some questions the facilitator can use to draw out fuller responses:

“What local conditions are you most angry about?”
“What would you want to organize around if you had a group to do it with?”
“What have you tried before that did or did not work?”
“What would make this chapter worth your continued time?”

This is the heart of the meeting. Do not rush it.

4. What Could This Chapter Be (20 minutes)

Building on the previous section, the facilitator surfaces the question of identity and purpose: “Given what we have heard, what do we think this chapter should focus on? What are our values? What is the purpose we share?”

The goal of this section is not consensus. The goal is to surface the raw material that volunteers will shape into draft founding documents before the next assembly.

The note-taker captures the major themes, points of convergence, and points of disagreement.

5. Identifying Volunteers for the Drafting Group (10 minutes)

The facilitator asks: “Who would like to help draft our founding documents — a short statement of our purpose, our objectives, and our values — for the next assembly to review?”

The drafting group should be three to five people, including at least one or two new attendees alongside Seed Team members. The drafting group’s job is to take the themes raised at this meeting and produce a one-to-two-page draft document for the second GA to discuss and ratify.

If more people volunteer than the group can hold, take everyone for now and let the group self-organize who does what. Inclusion at this stage matters more than efficiency.

6. Setting the Next Date and Closing (10 minutes)

Announce the date of the second GA (typically two to three weeks out)
Confirm location and time
Remind attendees of how to stay in touch (email list, communication channel)
Invite anyone interested to stay for informal conversation afterward

A Seed Team member closes briefly: thanks the room, names that something has started, sets the expectation that the chapter belongs to everyone present.

After the Meeting

Within 24 Hours

The note-taker writes a synopsis (see X1 for format) and shares it with the Seed Team for review
The Seed Team confirms the synopsis is accurate and represents the meeting fairly
The drafting group members are emailed with a brief next step: when to meet, what to produce, what timeline

Within 48 Hours

The synopsis is shared with all GA attendees
A confirmation of the second GA date, location, and what to expect is sent to all attendees and to anyone on the broader sign-up list who did not attend the first GA
Photos and brief social-media-ready text from the meeting are shared if attendees consented

Within One Week

The drafting group holds its first meeting and begins producing the founding documents
The Seed Team holds a brief internal debrief: what worked at the first GA, what to adjust for the second
FREE Foundation receives the synopsis and any reflections worth sharing with the broader network

Common Failure Modes

The first GA most often goes wrong in these ways:

The Seed Team dominates the meeting. Three or four founding members speak for 70% of the airtime, signal that they have already decided things, and the broader community quietly disengages. Fix: enforce stack discipline, and Seed Team members deliberately yield the floor to new voices.
The introductions round is rushed or skipped. People do not yet see each other as a group. The conversation that follows feels abstract because no one knows who they are talking to. Fix: give introductions enough time. They are not warm-up; they are the meeting.
The meeting tries to make decisions. Without an agreed decision-making method and without the broader community having had time to think, premature decisions create resentment. Fix: explicitly frame the first GA as voice-gathering, with decisions coming at the second GA.
No drafting group is identified. The meeting ends inspiring but with no concrete next step. The momentum dissipates. Fix: make the volunteer ask explicit and direct, and confirm the drafting group before closing.
No second date is announced. Attendees leave without knowing when they will see each other again. Fix: the second GA date is set before the first GA begins, not decided at it.
The synopsis is never written or shared. Without documentation, the meeting did not happen in any durable sense. Fix: the note-taker treats the synopsis as part of the meeting, not an optional follow-up.

Coordinating with FREE Foundation

For the first GA, FREE Foundation can offer:

A brief consultation with the Seed Team before the meeting on facilitation, agenda, and likely failure modes
Review of the founding-document drafts produced by the drafting group, before they go to the second GA
A Foundation representative joining remotely to briefly welcome the chapter and connect it to the broader network (only if the Seed Team requests this; it is not required)
Templates for the synopsis and the founding documents

What Comes Next

The next document is P4: Second General Assembly Meeting Guide, which covers reviewing and adopting the founding documents, choosing a decision-making method, and electing the first Stewards.

In parallel, the drafting group should use the founding-documents templates in the reference materials (R4 and related) to begin producing drafts for the second GA.

A Note on This Document

This is v0.1 of P3, drafted in May 2026. It will be updated as chapters hold their first GAs and surface what is missing.

This is a living document. It will be reviewed and updated as the network grows.

The FREE Chapter Starter Kit is published by FREE (Forum for Real Economic Emancipation). freefreeforum.org