Guide to Club Meetings

Overview

This guide is designed to serve as a reference for clubs that would like assistance in organizing and running effective meetings. The framework, items, and methods in this guide for clubs are merely suggestions. Different methods of holding meetings work for different clubs.  Club chairs should experiment and decide what is best for their individual chapter and their leadership style.

Meeting Setup

Time & Day: The time that you choose is very important. Usually the best time to have a meeting is either in the late afternoon or early evening. The meeting time and day should also be scheduled to ensure that club officers will be able to attend.

§          Afternoon: This usually works best for clubs on "commuter" campuses, for a significant portion of the student body will be leaving campus by 5 p.m. and they are not likely to drive back in the evening.  In general, an afternoon meeting should not be earlier than noon and start no later than 5 p.m.  This will maximize the number of students that will be out of class and minimize the number that will have left campus for the day. 
 

§          Evening:  In general, this is the ideal time, especially for schools with a heavier dorm population or population of students who live very close to campus.  If students live within a few miles of campus they usually will not be averse to returning to campus after dinner.
 

§          Day of the Week: It is usually best to have a meeting towards the end of the week.  Wednesdays and Thursdays work well, but Tuesday is not necessarily a bad idea either. Mondays are not hte best day to have meetings for publicity reasons. 

Location & Room: The location is extremely critical. You want to choose a location with which most students are very familiar, or will be easy to find.

§          Good Locations: A room in the student union or one of the better known department buildings (i.e. Social Science Hall Room: XYZ).
 

§          Bad Locations: New small department buildings or obscure rooms in remote buildings (i.e. a faculty lounge in a new building down the street at the end of campus in closet sized room that is partially underground through three doors after you climb through the window that is down three stairs near the bathroom down the hall on the left).
 

§          Room: The room should be comfortable with enough chairs for everybody.  But make sure that the room is not too large.  This can lead to awkwardness on both your members and also a speaker; plus, it makes look like you have less in attendance than you actually do.
 

§          Arrangement: The way you arrange the room completely depends on your approach of how formal a meeting should be.  In general, smaller clubs might consider not using the most formal approach.

 

·          Informal Approach: Arrange chairs in a circular fashion, and officers should sit throughout the circle. 
 

·          Formal Approach: Arrange the chairs or tables in a typical lecture style format. A podium or desk can be placed at the front of the room. Officers can sit at one table in the front of the room with the chairman in the middle.  Otherwise, the chairman or a designated officer can lead the meeting while the other officers place themselves throughout the room to maintain the camaraderie between officers and members.  
 

·          Mixed Approach.  Arrange the chairs in a half circle with the chairman or all officers at the open end.

Promoting your Meeting: You can have a great meeting planned with an awesome speaker, but if you do not effectively promote it, turn out will be disappointing.  Here are some things that you can do to help with turnout:

§          Tabling: Ideally, you should table every day in heavy traffic areas for constant recruitment.  However, it is especially important to table on the day of your meeting, people will see your table and be reminded of your meeting.  You also want to have fliers and materials on your table throughout the week.
 

§          Fliers:  It’s easiest and just as effective to keep it simple.  Put the time, place, and any special features (the Special Guest, Pizza etc.)
 

§          Reminder emails: There are two approaches that you can take:

 

·          Send out reminder emails: If your meeting is on a Thursday night, send out two reminder emails to you list serve on Tuesday night or Wednesday night – or both.  But be careful to not overdo it, so people don’t treat your emails as junk mail.
 

·          Attach reminders to other emails: This is the preferred method for established clubs or clubs that already send out multiple emails a week on their list serve. Instead of bogging your members down with even more emails, simply add the meeting reminder to the bottom of all of your emails.  But you will want to bold or draw attention to meeting information. 

 

§          Website: If possible, post it on the website, and keep the information general and simple.
 

§          Campus emails:  Some schools send out weekly emails to the student body, which would be a great opportunity to get the word out.  Usually, you can request that your meeting be posted to the email.  If not, yahoogroups.com has a free email "list-serv" system where you can easily set up a group for you club that will send out emails.  Be careful not to spam your members, emails should be sent out once a week at the most and include only important information about club activities rather than forwards or political jokes/commentary.  Send out emails about 4 days before meetings (this minimizes forgetfulness and maximizes advance notice).  Each email should have information about future meetings 2-3 wks in advance
 

§          Signs and Posters:  Make sure this is done in and near heavy traffic areas.

§          Make the meetings interesting: You can invite speakers, stay active as a club (see chapter manual), have ice breakers, stay friendly, or have weekly contests.  Contests are often an incentive for members to come back next week to see if they won, and it will keep it fun.  Offer some sort of small reward to the winner.  Some ideas for good contests are "Who has the most patriotic outfit on?" or have a dessert cook off.  The sky's the limit.

Keep the Same Location and Time!  The best way to make sure that people get to your meeting is to be consistent in the location and time.

Pre-Meeting

§          Arrive Early: Get to the location 15-30 minutes before the start of the meeting.  The last thing that you want is for a new person to arrive and be alone; or worse yet, think it is the wrong location and leave.  Arriving early also gives you plenty of time to setup before anybody else arrives.  You want potential and existing members to know that your club is well organized. 

 

§          Setup: Change the room arrangement first, for you don’t want to have to tell people to move once they have already sat down.  It is generally a good idea to have a table with additional information pamphlets, fliers, a sign-in sheet, and membership forms.  Also, if you use a podium or your speaker would like a podium, make sure it is in place.  As always, please have the American Flag hanging and ready for the Pledge of Allegiance.

 

§          Greeter: You always want to have a designated person to stand at the door to greet people as they arrive.  This person can be an officer or a well known member. Make sure the person that you choose as the greeter is outgoing and very friendly.  The new people should feel welcome and that you take interest in them: First Impressions Count!  The chair should personally make a point to at least introduce themselves to every new member. You also can:

 

·          Pass out name tags
 

·          Hand out an agenda to your members.  It should contain contact information and other key information, including upcoming events.
 

·          *If people do not feel welcome they will not come back!

The Flow of the Meeting

A successful meeting is very important to keeping and growing your membership. Your meeting should have a point, encourage discussion and critical thinking, and should be used to get your members involved in your club. The meeting should also be relatively short—35 minutes to 1 hour are ideal.  It should never be longer than 1 hour.  The following are items/topics of which a meeting might consist: 
 

§          Welcome Address: Chair
 

§          Pledge of Allegiance
 

§          Invocation: If your club decides to have an opening prayer, it is best to keep it as generic as possible in order to be respectful to members of different denominations/religions/faiths.
 

§          Ice Breakers: Doing some form of an icebreaker is a great way for members to become familiar with each other and comfortable during the meeting. Something as simple as each person introducing themselves and answering a question can be done.  If your club is more than a few dozen members, it might be a good idea to have only the new members and the officers introduce themselves for the sake of time. Here are some other ideas:

 

·          What is your major?
 

·          Who is your favorite Republican/Conservative?
 

·          Who is the hottest Republican?
 

·          Which Democrat/Liberal do you dislike the most?
 

·          When did you become a Republican?
 

·          What is your Favorite/Hottest Fox news reporter?
 

·          What is your favorite Movie?
 

·          What is your favorite band/album?
 

·          What is your hobby?
 

·          Trivia: Pick a President or some other well known political figure and ask trivia questions about them.  Or you could read off a quote and have your members identify the political figure.  And be sure to keep it fun by giving out small prizes, such as candy, t-shirts, posters, or other small prizes.

 

§          Special Guest/Speaker: It is always a good idea to try to have a speaker at your meetings. As a general rule, the special guest’s speech should be limited to 10 to 15 minuets. In general, it is also a good idea to have your guest speaker speak early in your meeting.  They might need to leave after they are done speaking; plus, it immediately engages the membership. Some ideas for speakers include:

 

·          Republican Elected Officials from the State Assembly, Senate, Congress, City Council, School Board, etc.  Ask them to speak on interesting issues that are relevant to students.
 

·          Republican Staffers: They will be able to speak about getting involved with the party and how students can make a difference.
 

·          Republican Party officials:  They can discuss the importance of youth involvement, campaigns, and the general direction of the Republican Party.
 

·          Teachers and Faculty: They can discuss issues that are present at your particular school. Depending on your individual school, it may be hard to find professors or administrators that are willing to speak at your meeting.
 

·          CCR State Officials: They can update you on what CCR is doing to help you, what is going on at the state level, events that are taking place across the state, how to get involved statewide, and more. Your Regional Vice-Chair should come and speak to your club at least once per their term.

 

§          Announcements: Here are some ideas for announcements:

 

·          Important upcoming dates:
 

§          Your next rally
 

§          Your next social event
 

§          An off campus event that you might be going to, such as the next LI school, CRP/CCR Conventions, or Central Committee meetings
 

§          Upcoming events for other friendly on-campus clubs
 

§          The latest news on and events for the College Democrats/progressives

 

Discussion: It is important to talk about topics that foster discussion. This will get your members involved and should keep the meeting interesting. Ask your members what they think about the topic and encourage participation.  Here are some ideas for discussion:

 

§          Current Events: World, national, state, or community events that affect us as Republicans and college students.  Some things that might be worth discussing include:
 

·          The local union strike
 

·          The latest news with the war on terror
 

·          The latest news regarding the presidential campaign

 

§          Articles in the school newspaper: If there is a controversial article in the school news paper, summarize it and discuss it. Here are some discussion points:

 

·          What do you think about the accuracy of the article?
 

·          Does the article give both sides to the story?
 

·          What can we do to remedy the situation or get our ideas across on this issue?

 

§          A real controversial article can churn up some good ideas from your members on how to counter the issue.

 

§          Encourage your members to follow up by writing letters to the editor

 

§          If the issue really catches on with your members, an idea for an event might result out of it, such as a rally or debate

 

§          Planning: This would also be a good time to discuss with members the plans of upcoming rallies, debates, or any other events that you might have in the works.  The details of planning should be handled separately by the officers or a committee; however, members should be involved in submitting ideas and advising.  Encouraging discussion on these topics will make people feel like they are contributing toward the success of your group.  In addition, some members might take additional interest in an event and volunteer to work on it.

 

Officer Reports: Each officer giving a report involves general members in what your Executive Committee does. Each officer might want to briefly touch on what projects/events that they are currently working on and what they will be working on for the near future.  Don’t be tedious, though, or the members will lose interest.  Typically, the Chairman will give his or her report first.