Dealing with disorganized club meetings? Having trouble with attendance? Completing tasks late or not at all?Looking to run more effective meetings? Read on for 6 quick and easy tips for holding more effective meetings that you can implement today!
First thing’s first, make an AGENDA.
You want to make sure that you create an agenda for each of your club meetings. An agenda is a complete outline of what you want to accomplish and discuss during your meeting. The agenda should not be longer than one page in order to stay within your allotted meeting time.
Start off by asking yourself the question: what is the purpose of this meeting and what do we hope to accomplish? Setting these two intentions from the beginning can help you plan out the trajectory for the meeting more clearly to your members. It also helps avoid the dreaded “this meeting could’ve been an email” response from your members.
Once you have set this intention, you can jump into the meeting by reviewing any old business (i.e. topics you discussed during the last meeting) in order to check on the status of how ongoing tasks are progressing. Then, you can present any new business and topics as they’ve been laid out in the agenda. Make sure to check in with your club members either throughout the meeting or at the end to address any questions, comments, or concerns they may have. They might be concerned about meeting deadlines, want to clarify new projects, or have questions about something they missed in a previous meeting.
Agendas are so important because they help you stay on topic as well as maintain the history of what you discussed at previous meetings.
Record your minutes.
This is where meeting minutes come into play! Meeting minutes are essentially a written record recapping your club meeting. This is a great task for your club secretary to take on!
Your secretary can use the meeting agenda as an outline to keep track of information and record action items. We suggest using Google Docs to keep a bulleted list of the key points mentioned in the meeting. Google Docs allows you to tag individuals, reminding them that they need to follow up on a specific action item from the meeting.
At the end of the meeting, you can have the secretary follow up with an email to all club members with the link to the minutes. This is also a helpful recap for those who missed the meeting.
K-I-S-S it!
Keep It Short and Simple. College students are sitting through enough meetings each day between class, advising, internships, and more! Effective leaders keep their members engaged by sticking to the agenda and not running overtime. This starts by making sure you show up early, begin on time, and dive right into the agenda. If your meetings tend to get derailed by questions or tangents, ask members to hold their comments until the end. This way, those who need to leave the meeting at the set end time can do so. The absolute key to effective meetings?: FOCUS.
HAVE FUN
You’re leading a college club… not a corporate executive team. There is no need to be serious all of the time. Have a little fun with your meetings! Include icebreakers to start your meetings, close with affirmations, and hold a group retreat once a year to build bonds within your club. Your members should be having a fun time at meetings, not counting down the minutes until the meeting ends. You can still have fun while holding effective meetings and staying on task!
Election Time!
It is essential that you be extremely clear in your club constitution and bylaws about:
- Who can vote
- When they can vote
- How they can vote
Outline the voting format for your members as well: formal or casual? online or in-person?
Each club has a constitution that outlines their specific election procedure. If you have questions about elections or want to make changes to your constitution (before election season, of course), you can reach out to the United Student Government Operations Committee for assistance!
Whichever way your elections proceed, always make sure it is clear to your club members before you get to election day.
Roll Call: Attendance Policies
Again, this is something that is outlined in each club’s specific constitution. Make it known to club members from the beginning who needs to be at your meetings and what kind of meetings they should attend. For example, is the entire general board invited or just executive board members?
You can easily notify all club members of upcoming meetings on your club’s Rams Involved Community chatter feed!
What are your attendance expectations for club members? What are the consequences for those who are missing? You should establish these criteria before your club starts meeting each semester.
