After talking last week about how to run effective leadership meetings I wanted to briefly touch on one point I made and expand on it a little more. I mentioned that it is important to start the meeting on time and I talked about how when meetings don’t start on time you train people to show up later and later.
I think it’s just as important to start your regular weekly meetings on time as it is to start your leadership meetings on time. Meetings that don’t start on time can be frustrating and often look unorganized. I think it’s also important to note that many students have a lot of schoolwork or other commitments and so we should try our best to respect their time (just as we want others to respect our time). We can do this by starting meetings on time, but also by having a fairly consistent ending time for meetings. When people know how long a meeting is going to run they are more inclined to come regularly. Your group will be more effective at attracting serious, committed students by doing this. Most of the time I try to keep weekly BASIC meetings to one hour and fifteen minutes (an hour and a half at most) and leadership meetings to no more than an hour.
One great way to make sure that your regular meetings start on time is to use 5 minute countdowns (or other lengths) on a video projector. One website I’ve found where you can download countdowns for free is freecountdowns.net. You can also find some by searching “five minute countdown” on YouTube. Of course you’ll still need to make sure someone starts the countdown on time.