Steering Committee Starter Kit

Everything the founding circle needs to hold its first real meeting. Print it, bring it, use it.

Companion to Step 1 — Forming a Steering Committee. This kit is three things: a first-meeting agenda, a set of role cards, and a founding checklist.

Part 0 — The Opening Agreement (before any paperwork)

This comes before the first formal meeting, and before any legal step. It is reached, not signed — a discernment the founders talk all the way through until they genuinely share it. Spending three or four unhurried sessions here is normal and wise. Rush it, and everything built on top will wobble.

Sit with these seven questions, in order, until you can answer each together:

  1. What is our Driver? What in our place will not let us rest — and what do we therefore exist to bring into being? (Use the Driver Statement Worksheet.)
  2. What do we value — how will we be with one another? The how matters as much as the what.
  3. What does this Company actually co-create in the world? Name the real change, not the abstraction.
  4. Are the means the end? Is the way we are organizing already the way we want our community to be? If not, fix the way we organize — the means are the end.
  5. Does this body have its own agency — a life and purpose beyond any one of us, that none of us owns?
  6. Will we federate, or isolate? Are we building one cell of a wider Whole, or a fortress? (Unity, not isolation.)
  7. Are we acting from love and abundance, or from fear and scarcity? Name it honestly; it shapes everything downstream.

When the seven are genuinely shared — not merely agreed-to-move-on — you are ready to convene the first formal meeting below.

Part 1 — The First Meeting Agenda (90 minutes)

Choose one person to hold time and one to keep the record. Sit in a circle if you can. Begin and end on time — keeping your first agreement is the first proof you are a body.

Time Movement What happens
0:00–0:10 The Question Read aloud together: "What is the One Thing that everyone thinks is impossible, that if accomplished would enable everything else to succeed?" Sit in silence a moment. No solving yet.
0:10–0:25 Why I Am Here Each person, uninterrupted, names why they came. The Keeper notes a phrase from each. This is the first deposit in your Commons of trust.
0:25–0:50 Our Purpose Together, fill the blank: "The ____ Community Company exists for the total integrated wellbeing, development, right relationship, and flourishing of all generations of life in ____." Name your place. Get a stake in the ground — not perfection.
0:50–1:10 How We Will Work Answer five questions in writing (see below). This becomes your first one-page Field of Agreements.
1:10–1:25 Next Actions Three actions, three owners, three dates. And: set the date of the next meeting before anyone leaves.
1:25–1:30 Close However your community closes with meaning.

The Five "How We Will Work" Questions

  1. How often will we meet, and where?
  2. How will we make decisions? (Default: consent — see Consent Governance One-Pager.)
  3. What does each of us commit to contribute — time, skills, resources?
  4. Who keeps our records and our shared resources, transparently?
  5. What happens when someone needs to leave? (Exit is always free.)

Write the answers on one page. Everyone signs. That page is your founding Field of Agreements.

Part 2 — Role Cards

One person may hold more than one role; no role is a rank. These are services to the body, rotating as the body matures. (Fuller descriptions in Step 1 — Forming a Steering Committee.)

  • The Driver — holds the urgency; will not let the work die.
  • The Weaver — knows the community; opens doors.
  • The Keeper — records, dates, resources, follow-through. The work lives or dies here.
  • The Elder — trusted standing; steadies conflict. (Wisdom-based, not age-based.)
  • The Builder — makes concrete things happen in the physical and legal world.
  • The Questioner — asks "are we sure?"; guards against groupthink. Do not found without one.

Part 3 — The Founding Checklist

Step 1 is complete when every box is true:

  • [ ] 4–7 founders have each said yes out loud.
  • [ ] A one-sentence draft purpose names your place.
  • [ ] A one-page Field of Agreements for the Committee is written and signed.
  • [ ] The Committee's authority and its limits are written down — including that it is temporary.
  • [ ] Three next actions have owners and dates.
  • [ ] The next meeting is on everyone's calendar.

When all six are true, open the Community Company Charter — Template and begin Section 1. You have crossed from population to body.

Back to The Community Company Toolkit · The LIØNSBERG Community Guidebook

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