Roles and responsibilities

Five named roles cover a town hall: lead organizer, county captain, facilitator, story team lead, and AV/runner. Anything not assigned to a person does not happen.

Town halls fail when roles are diffuse. 'Someone will handle that' means no one will. Five roles cover an effective county town hall. One person can hold two of them in a small event, but every role must be named.

Lead organizer. Owns the theory of change, the run-of-show, and the post-event follow-through. This is usually the Datos Lab staffer or the lead community partner. The lead organizer is not on stage.

County captain. Owns outreach in the county. Holds the relationships with the church, the school principal, the local press, and the volunteer pipeline. The county captain is the public face of the event in the county and is usually on stage to open and close.

Facilitator. Runs the room during the event. Keeps time, calls speakers, handles disruptions, manages the Q&A. The facilitator must be different from the lead organizer because the lead organizer needs to monitor the room and the press, not the mic.

Story team lead. Owns the three to five constituent speakers. Recruits them in Week 4–5, rehearses them in Week 3, and sits with them at the event. After the event, owns the documentation: written-up testimony, video clips, and consent forms for legal use.

AV and runner. Owns mics, projector, livestream, captioning, the sign-in sheet, and the room reset. The AV/runner is the most thankless role and the most important one — losing audio in the first three minutes kills the event.

Backups: every role needs a named backup who is at the event. The backup is not 'someone available' — it is one specific person who has read the run-of-show.