This is based on how Occupy Sandy worked, with nodes like kitchens or distribution (distro) centers, with nodes forming a network. You will have learned new tips and techniques in the meantime – trust your gut and what already works for your community.

Structure

Nodes included, but were not limited to:

• Communications (“comms”): performed two main tasks, one engaging in conversations online, phone, etc as attached to dispatch; the second which dealt with back-end and internet infrastructure;
• Dispatch: coordination of requests from the field with resources in distribution centers;
• Distribution (“distro”): coordinated via dispatch the incoming and outgoing volunteers, supplies, and food either to relief site nodes or directly to individual locations;
• Intake: held orientation for incoming volunteers to learn or demonstrate basic communication protocols, history, and interaction assumptions as well as to verify commitment and to help find need and skill overlaps;
• Interoccupy: coordinated between various Occupy groups, including website incubation space and OS to Occupy Oklahoma knowledge transference;
• Kitchen: preparation of food for the affected population and volunteers;
• Relief Site: on a spectrum of affiliation with OS and often run by churches, local organizations, and local leaders, these sites housed volunteers, supplies, and food coming in and being distributed outward;
• Warehouse: overflow / pre Relief Site staging for supplies and volunteer surge periods.

Skill share within a type of node

• Post lots of infographics, drawings, and notes within a space (physical or digital) as waypoints for new folks. What is kept in each refrigerator? What are the community expectations in this space? Where is the bathroom at? Removing cognitive overhead and memory load will free people up to be more effective at their actual focus. 
• Have folks rotate between different nodes of the same topic (EG, each of your kitchens) to share implicit knowledge such as putting damp towels under cutting boards to prevent slippage and injury. These are things that won’t come up in meetings but are well worth communicating. 
• Have internal meetings about what’s going on for the node as needed. Most of what you’re doing will happen organically through interaction, as guided by larger meetings of the whole network. 

Connect across the network

• Have high interval (daily?) problem solving meetings between nodes sharing a location (so a kitchen and comms node sharing a location) to streamline interfaces between them. Most people participate. Facilitate effectively by doing things like keeping stack, having breakout groups, and limiting speaking time.
• Have less frequent, but still regular meetings (weekly?) for each node to talk about what they’ve been up to and why across the whole network, and where they think they might be going. Then have group discussion about how the whole network is behaving and where it’s going. Then allow for time for breakout groups about topics folks want to dive into deeper. A smaller number of representatives attend, and rotate who goes.
• Have one person facilitating, another taking (progressive) stack, and a third person doing technical troubleshooting.

Share to another network

• Have somewhat regular calls (or written missives) about what your network is up to, to share to others. This will help skill share across other mutual aid groups.