How to Make Your Meetings Short, Sweet and Effective!

Not too many students enjoy calling for or attending meetings. Meetings are important as it allows all members of your student organization to speak out and it enables members to keep up with everyone's concerns, questions, challenges and news. Meeting environments should be open for anyone to share their ideas and to spread the information about anything (finances, event planning, etc.). Here are some tips, after the jump, to make your meetings as enjoyable and useful as possible!




1- Determine a start and an end time

It's essential that you not only start on time but it is also necessary that you end on time. Setting an end time can dramatically improve productivity of meetings. This will prompt the members of the student organization to be efficient when they address subjects.


2- Allot time for unplanned discussions

Before the meeting starts, have a sheet or a whiteboard available for execs to suggest subjects they want to tackle during the meeting. Save some time at the end of the meetings to go through all of these subjects. Encourage student members who wrote them to lead the specific discussions.


3- Give each subject item a time limit

We have all been in meetings where that one member goes off on tangents and unnecessarily extends the duration of meetings. Setting a time limit per subject will undoubtedly help the cause. Set realistic time limits to prevent rushing through subjects that need more time and attention. In the occurrence where there is not enough time to discuss an item, its discussion should be postponed to the next gathering. In fact, it should be the first subject tackled at the following meeting.



4- Assign Item Actions

If a meeting item requires an action to be taken, student executives should be appointed to take them on. Distribute responsibilities among members to distribute the work load!



5- Take Notes!

At every meeting, one member of the team should be appointed to take bullet point notes of each item and their discussions. Written records of meetings are informally called "meeting minutes". These are important because they allow all members to come back and revise the course of past meetings. Meeting minutes are also very valuable to go over at following meetings to ensure no item has been left unfinished.



It is also very important to keep the lines of communication open between members of the team. Download the OOHLALA app to increase these communication channels. The app will allow you to chat with other student executives directly and to know their class schedules in order to be aware of everyone's availabilities! Meetings don't have to be as painful as they sometimes tend to be. When organized properly, meetings can be short, sweet and very effective!



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