The First Meeting
The first meeting is important because it lays the foundation for the club and is the first impression your members will have. It’s the perfect time to introduce each other, the topic, and set the direction of the club. Use this time to gather information about the club members and share ideas. Emphasize the impact you can have and be sure to make it fun for everyone!
To learn more, click on any of the headings below.
Introductions
At the first meeting of your club, you should have everyone introduce themselves. Add an icebreaker to make it fun or ask everyone to share something about themselves. Here is a list of some icebreakers to start off your group meeting with: http://wilderdom.com/games/Icebreakers.html
Sign in Sheet
Pass around a sign up sheet so that you can collect information from those people who are interested in getting involved. Here is a sample sign in sheet. Make sure that everyone has signed up on the sign-in sheet and be sure to collect it after the meeting.
Planning for Success
After everyone has introduced themselves, explain the focus of the club, what you plan to do, and why it is important. All the work you have done so far should prepare you to speak about this topic and address the main points.
In order to achieve your overall goal, you need to create mini-goals. These mini-goals are meant to be goals that are achievable in a moderate amount of time, unlike your overall goal. Your club or group members can help you to specify what these mini-goals are and how they can help to achieve them. It’s really important to be sure to include the ideas and opinions of the people interested and formulate a plan together to move forward with your idea. To help formulate your plan use the goal planning worksheet
An adult should also be able to help you with this process and help to formulate manageable goals. Be sure that someone is taking notes and keeping track of people’s ideas so you have something to reference later on.
Wrap up
Plan a date for your next meeting that works with the group’s schedule. Let them know how you plan to move forward for the next meeting (ex: continue to develop plan, choose officers etc.) and don’t forget to remind them of the next meeting.
Follow up
After the first meeting, you can think about how the meeting went and how you can improve the meeting the next time. It is also a chance to think about how you can incorporate others ideas and how you will run your second meeting.
It’s always helpful for people to receive notes after a meeting with a reminder of the date and time of the next meeting. A reminder to those who attended the first meeting will help to keep them involved and excited about the project.
The Second Meeting
The second meeting is a good opportunity to establish officers, who will help keep the club organized and give people tasks to stay involved. You can choose to use these definitions for the roles of officers or come up with other ways to disperse responsibilities and tasks to the group.
Role of officers
President- Leads and oversees the club, is the point person that represents the project, and is responsible for assisting the other officers when in need. They also communicate to other groups, and help to keep the club on track.
Vice-President- Assists with the presidential duties, and helps to keep things organized. The vice president fills in when the president is unavailable.
Secretary- Helps prepare for meetings organizationally reminds people about the meetings, may write outlines for the meetings and takes notes at the meeting and keeps other paperwork organized for future reference.
Treasurer- Manages the funds of the club, including figuring out what will cost your club money and how much money you will need to do your activities. They usually help to fundraise and are responsible for collecting money or keeping track of donations and reporting back to the club.
Other Officers- Decide whether the group thinks it’s important to have other officers or if there are other tasks that need to be delegated.
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