Jos is hilarious. For the past week she has been over-analyzing and trying to concrete everything for our first real leadership meeting. Up until this point Jos and I have been the only people consistently behind the scenes planning Events and Meetings and the Mentoring Program and Long-Term Goals and Marketing and Social Media and Fundraising...
So we decided having more of a consistent team of fellow committee leaders instead of the "occasional group consultations for advice" we've been having, might be a good idea.
So we came up with the idea for committees. 4 committees.
Marketing Committee -helps market and manage promoting events, fundraising, and the mentoring program in person and online
Fundraising Committee -Focuses on raising funds for the 3 non-profit causes we support
Event Committee -Plans the big events (30+ people) and monthly networking meetings (10-20 people)
Mentoring Committee - Helps manage and implement our Mentoring Program
We then listed out possible/ needed positions within these 4 committees. They became like departments filled with specific job descriptions available.
The Leadership Meeting was posted and 25 people said they were coming. 10 showed up. Only 5 people knew about the group itself -the rest were completely new and had no initial intention of being put on the leadership committee. Awkward...
So after a week of constant mapping out of the agenda, room arrangements, and paperwork trying to outline the different leadership roles -we had to change things up a bit.
I told Jos this would probably happen. Initially she had an agenda that was concretely mapped out. From 7:00-7:15 was registration. 7:15-7:30 was introductions. 7:30-8:20 was individual committee meetings for people who fell into the 4 groups...
We ended up just having a big group discussion about 1 of the 4 upcoming events. It was almost a complete waste of time. It's always great meeting new people, but we ended up mostly talking in circles and watching our initial intentions devolve.
Here's what I've decided: Based on weekly marketing meetings I have at work, I think our best option is to have people divide into "area of expertise". People who have greater Marketing experience can go off with the "Marketing Committee" and plan things out. People with event planning experience can go off with the "Event Committee". Whoever is at the meeting needs to pick one committee and attend a 30 minute group session. Then all of the committees should come back as a group and a representative from each committee should speak on behalf of what was discussed.
A collaborative group discussion should then occur among the different committees together. After 30m minutes the groups should break off again and continue to strategize based on the information that was shared in the group. Action items should be assigned and the committees should come back as a group once again after 30 minutes. Final plans and closing remarks should be made by the committee representatives.
We should have the individual committees meet up once a month and all of the committees come together as a group once a month.
No "timed" agenda other than staying within a 2 hour time frame. Just have discussion topics and action goals listed and discussed. Groups are harder to manage. You have to allow the natural dynamics that will come up have their freedom. Especially when people are not guaranteed to show up to the next meeting. Let whoever is there carry on where the group left off. Notes should be taken and action items noted.
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