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Writing proposals

Guidelines for writing proposals

  • Is this a proposal or a question, for your or any other working group?
  • Be clear about what you're asking for - information, guidance or a decision? (general and guidelines, or detailed decision).
  • Explore as a working group the pros and cons of your proposal and see if that changes how it is written.
  • What are the key points that people need to know before making a decision on the proposal.
  • Show the proposal to someone outside your group to see if they understand (not need to agree, that's for the monthly meeting).
  • Don't use jargon.
  • A comment from evaluation form for Nottingham meeting: 'proposals would have been better as proposals, not 'A' or 'B' questions (which set up a binary, and aren't helpful for creative/consensus-based meeting)'
  • Get them to the facilitation working group two weeks before the meeting so we can plan the content of the meeting.
  • It would be helpful for facilitators to know how much time you think the proposal needs (even just a guess) and if the proposal is controversial within your group.