The goal of this activity is to make a single sandwich with the best ingredients. Participants will be using their cumulative knowledge from this session as well as from personal experience to decide on a plan for collective action. Organize participants into groups of six. Ask each group to decide quickly on an issue of shared concern if it wasn’t determined beforehand.
Build your Action Sandwich from the following ingredients:
Card 1 HOPE (about what could happen) Write a specific "hope" related to the chosen issue on your top card. Don’t be concerned if seems overly ambitious. Example: "I hope every farmer in our community who wants to, could raise for local consumption livestock or produce and have ready access to marketing, processing, and distribution assistance."
Card 2 FEAR (of what might happen) Write your worst fear about the situation. Example: "I am afraid that farmers would raise the food and no one would buy it."
Card 3 PASSION (feelings and opinions about what should happen. Write what moves you deeply about the situation. Example: "My heart breaks when I hear farmers lament that the only way they can make ends meet is to raise crops and livestock in industrialized ways and/or find a second job off the farm."
Card 4 ROLE (personal commitment) Write how you see yourself participating in this effort. Example: "I will help a local farmer to set up a congregation supported agriculture system through my parish."
Card 5 TIME Write how long you think it will take. Example: "I’m going to start right now and hopefully have everything set up in two years."
Card 6 MONEY Write anything you know about the need for, or availability of, funding. Example: The farmer may have up front costs for seed, etc. that could be paid in advance by the parish or people who purchase shares in the system."
Card 7 FACT Write one thing you know to be true about the situation that has a bearing on the outcome: "I know that farmers who want to raise food more sustainably need the promise of local markets and/or processing and some capital before they can take the risk."
Card 8 REALITY Write your version of a realistic goal statement. Example: "If our parish would make a multi-year commitment to purchase a specified amount of produce from a farmer, it could provide the incentive for a farmer to take the risk to try it on a small scale. This would then demonstrate to the community the positive difference such a commitment could make and would encourage the farmer and others to continue."
Making the Sandwich
Supply participants with a stack of 3" x 5" index cards (8/person). Cards should be prepared ahead of time and each indicating ingredients they represent with one-word descriptors used above. Each stack should be kept in order with all of the ingredients sandwiched between Hope and Reality. Provide the following directions as participants refer to a handout with the above descriptions and these procedures.
1. Each person should write his/her specific "hope" for the community on the top card, regardless of how ambitious it might be.
2. Next, each person should place this card on the bottom of the pile and pass the entire pile to the person on his/her left.
3. On the next card, each participant should write his/her worst fear about the situation. Then, place this card on the bottom of the pile and pass the whole pile to the left again. Continue the activity in this manner until all the cards are complete. Limit one minute for writing on the cards.
4. When the participants have completed this process, they should end up with a pile that has Hope back on the top. The pile will contain a contribution from each participant.
5. The next task is for everyone in the group to make a single sandwich from the best ingredients. The whole group should participate in streamlining the goals. Sandwiches may turn out to be enormous and messy with huge dollops of funding ideas, or a very generous sprinkling of facts and statistics.
6. The final step is to rewrite the goals so you will know when they have been accomplished.
7. This process will be the beginning of addressing the question "What can we do?"
Adapted from Nan Booth,Meeting Room Games:Getting Things Done in Committees
(Saint Paul,MN: Brighton Publications, 1996).
