I spent a LOT of time as a member or chair of various committees and coalitions. In between the serious conversations, number crunching and careful planning, there was the ‘other’ stuff. For the privacy of all involved in that stuff, I will give a completely ridiculous, partially reality based, fictional example of that stuff.

Let’s say we wanted to work during lunch. Something as meaningless as the pizza we were ordering would turn into a three ring circus. One person would request that the wheat for the crust be blessed by a shaman. Someone else in the group would feel the need to offer a long lecture about free range pepperoni. The vegan might burst into tears at the thought of someone eating cheese. After a long healing session and smudging the bad karma from the room, everyone would agree to a lunch of organic wheatgrass that was locally grown by homeschoolers.

All of that is a long and silly way of saying that regardless of your group’s mission or event, the ‘stuff’ is a distraction that doesn’t need to be included in your notes for the next committee. It is as relevant to the process as how many times someone in the group needed a potty break.

If you are going to do your planning on Facebook or any other public venue, you do not want the distractions making more noise than the actions that matter. Plan in a private group instead of on everyone and their cousin’s wall. There are detractors who would like your group’s audience and budget and they will happily tell the world that only communists don’t eat pizza. Don’t walk into a PR war about junk food. Order pizza in private.