Meeting Structure Including Officer and Exec Meetings
 

This topic is designed for us to share the way our chapters integrate its meetings to get chapter business done. More specifically: how we organize our chair/committee meetings, exec meetings, and chapter meetings.

For example, a sorority on my campus, has committee meetings for an hour, followed by an exec meeting for an hour, and then chapter meeting for an hour.

The format of your reply should where possible indicate:

1. How your various meetings are handled and when.

2. Whether your meetings are formal dress.

3. Follow a strict or lose parliamentary procedure.

4. Whatever else you think relevant.

5. What suggestions for improvement you might have . . .

ITs a great way to compare ideas and maybe make boring/ineffective meetings more fun.

In my chapter, we hold our meetings as follows:

Executive Council meets once a month on a Sunday afternoon. Executive Council consists of all our chapter officers and alumnae advisors. Our Chapter Advisor serves as the Presiding Officer.

Chapter Council meets Tuesday nights one hour prior to Chapter Meeting. Those present are the chapter officers and office coordinators.

We are encouraged to be in chapter dress (business attire) for all our meetings.

We should be implementing parliamentary procedure for our meetings, but we don't. E.C. follows a loose parliamentary procedure while chapter uses very little or none at all. I've discussed this concern with my chapter president and we're seriously discussing implementing a more structured and strict parliamentary procedure for the Fall.

After opening Ritual, we usually start with "I love my sisters because..." or "I'm glad I'm an AlphaGam because..." to get everyone focused. It works well with my chapter because we're smaller in size, so I don't know if this would work with larger chapters.

I also have a question. Do you take short breaks (or A short break) during your meetings? We normally don't, and because of this girls up and leave to use the facilities while someone's giving an officer report. I think it's somewhat rude, but I do understand that when ya gotta go, ya gotta go! How long do your chapter meetings normally last?

Because we have chapter on Tuesday nights, many of us are so quick to leave meetings to take care of academic responsibilities. How many of you have chapter on weekdays? Are weekday meetings very effective for you?

We hold our meetings on Sunday nights, mostly because nobody has classes that day, and since we don't have a house, we need to aquire a classroom. I know a good chunk of the GLO's on my school do this as well (AZD regularly meets down the hall from us). I can't imagine meeting on a weekday, since almost everyone in my chapter works or has night classes at least one or two nights out of the week.

Dress is casual except for formal meetings, which are well--formal.

Chairs of committess meet on an as needed basis and give regular reports to the chapter every week in the opening of the meeting. We follow parlimentary procedure loosely for the most part, but try to stay true and keep some form of order.

A short break would be a welcome addition to our chapter meetings, especially the long ones addressing various problems. I'll have to propose that to our chapter pres.

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No funny squiggles, just bold letters: TKE

Our EC meets the first Sunday of every month.

Our Chapter Council meets every other week or sometimes every three weeks about an hour and a half before our regular meetings.

Chapter Meetings are at 8:30 on Sunday nights. We do Ritual, role call, officer reports in initiation order, and then Rose Notes (which are little shout outs or inside jokes). We don't use parli-pro. The dress code is as follows (unless we have a pinning or something): The first meeting of the month is khakis & letters, the last meeting of the month is casual because of Roses & Thorns, the other meetings are business attire.

Committee Meetings are usually kind of random.

I like the weekend meetings but I wish they were earlier, like 6 or 7ish. Our meetings usually til at least 10 and everyone gets chatty/antsy by the end of the meetings.

If your President isn't very familiar or comfortable with Parliamentary procedure then she isn't likely to get it implemented anytime really soon. And unless she has been using it elsewhere she's not going to be comfy with it. I would make sure you were comfy with it, get like a ten page primer that has the major motions and there order, email her a copy and then meet with her a couple times to go over it. But make sure you know a bit about first, otherwise its the blind leading the blind. Then introduce it either at your Sister retreat before the semester starts. or over the first two meetings and formally adopt it by vote on the third. That way you can distribute it some basic literature on it and practice it a bit at the meetings.

We should be implementing parliamentary procedure for our meetings, but we don't. E.C. follows a loose parliamentary procedure while chapter uses very little or none at all. I've discussed this concern with my chapter president and we're seriously discussing implementing a more structured and strict parliamentary procedure for the Fall.

We have taken short breaks, its not a bad idea to do them in hour increments but limit them to 5 minutes.

A way to discourage tardiness is to have a rule that the chapter must stand when members enter the room, its a sign of respect to the member, but it also discourages people from being late because it makes them very noticeable and disrupts the meeting for a minute.

When I was president and I was focused, and new exactly where we needed to be going meetings were short less than an hour. When I was unfocused and the meeting didn't have all that much of a point, they could be MUCH longer. A lot of it depends on how prepared the officers are and how well information is flowing up and down the lines. Someone might have a lot more questions if the meeting they are going to vote on a topic is the first time they even heard that something might be discussed!

I also have a question. Do you take short breaks (or A short break) during your meetings? We normally don't, and because of this girls up and leave to use the facilities while someone's giving an officer report. I think it's somewhat rude, but I do understand that when ya gotta go, ya gotta go! How long do your chapter meetings normally last?

In my experience meeting nights were generally picked to fit into the schedule of the EC first and the chapter second. That is why many chapters meet late 10pm. People are usually done work by then. Also, the earlier in the week the better, theoretically we are supposed to plan way in advance, but in practice many events are being ironed out the meeting before the event. [/b]

Because we have chapter on Tuesday nights, many of us are so quick to leave meetings to take care of academic responsibilities. How many of you have chapter on weekdays? Are weekday meetings very effective for you?

Thank you so much James! Your ideas are great!

Our leadership teams meets once weekly, one hour before the chapter meeting. The chapter meeting is held on Sundays at 9 pm. They follow a pretty strict order so that meetings do not get out of hand with a lot of clutter or chit chat and the like. Each member of the leadership team has committee meetings when needed.

We used to meet Sunday evenings from 8 to 10pm, but now we have during the week meetings on Thursdays from 730 to 930pm. While I would prefer the Sunday meetings still, too many brothers have cited that they want "the whole weekend free" and thus throw away our Fri/Sat/Sun options. Now, we've discovered that some brothers could care less about Thursdays too, so Thursdays suck. Monday's out because SOME are Monday Night Football / other sport freaks. Tuesday and Wednesdays have intramural sports, so what the heck?! We've settled on Tuesdays now, so we'll see how the semester goes....

We used to have formal dress at every meeting except the last meeting of every month, but now we've gone to letters only... I think we need to cut back even further because our meetings are usually right after several brothers are out of class, should we still require the letters with all the inconvenience?

Our meetings follow the Robert's Rule of Order for regular meetings. Our fraternity is small enough that we can get away with just a regular meeting and an executive board meeting, but the idea of including the alumni advisor and perhaps the faculty advisor on a monthly basis may be even better.

We need improvement, but we're doing a lot better than we were 2 years ago. Still, with during the week meetings a new thing, how can we make it easier for our bros to participate and keep their motivation high for the meetings? Fines definitely don't work...

-MK

1. How your various meetings are handled and when.
We have EC One sunday a month for about two-three hours depending on what business we have. We start with the president's report and work down in order of precedent...
the chapter advisor presides.
At chapter meetings we have business meetings every other week and program meetings the other weeks... they are Sunday nights at 7. We go by parlimentary procedure for the most part.. we have a few interjections and stuff but still.
Chapter council is on Thursday nights.

2. Whether your meetings are formal dress.
We have formal meetings at the business meetings and informal for EC and Program

3. Follow a strict or lose parliamentary procedure. We go pretty well during EC and Chapter meetings.. chapter council is more about everyone taking care of what we need done, we also get our committee meetings done then.

Leslie AGD what is Rose and thorns?

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"...and love her for her womanhood."

Sarah, Roses and Thorns is kinda like our litte rant session. We talk about the good and bad stuff that's going on in the chapter (hence roses=good, thorn=bad). We go in initiation order and you can either say something or pass, but if you say something negative, you have to something positive as well. If someone says something negative, we usually open it up to three or four comments and then move on.

Do your program meetings work well? We don't use them and I know we should!

Our program meetings last about twenty minutes or thirty. They are short and sweet. We don't have to attend all of them, either, only 40% it is called the pathways program, it is in the VPMD's book. It makes things easier and harder because you cannot conduct ANY business at these meetings and if something comes up you may have to!! AACK!! Like a lot of the fraternities are really weird about sending out info on their philanthropy stuff two days before hand and we can't vote on it until next week!! Oh well I guess we just won't participate but I hate to do that!!
Sometimes they are boring but when we have guests it is really neat!

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"...and love her for her womanhood."

We have our meetings on Friday afternoons - and while this may seem a little weird, here's the logic behind it - we figure that, for the most part, we're going to be hanging around with each other anyways, whether it be an official social event, or just a random weekend night - so if meetings run a little long, oh well, it's not like we're holding anyone up - the people we're going out with are with us in the meetings.

I think if the meeting is real long and hour or more there should be a break. The smokers are dieing and some of us might have to go to the bathroom.

Roses and Thorns
 

When I was in school..way back when, Roses and Thorns were just handwritten notes..like Roses to Sister Brandy for taking me to the grocery store or Thorns to whoever left the lobby in such a wreck...

1. How your various meetings are handled and when.
We hold Exec meetings at 6pm on Sundays, pledge meetings at 7pm on Sunday, and Chapter at 8pm. Yeah so I hop from meeting to meeting on Sundays. :) I'm not sure, but I think Standards Board meets on Monday nights, and IG groups meet whenever they want.

2. Whether your meetings are formal dress.
We have one formal chapter a month, and we try to have at least two theme chapters a money. For example last month we had a PJ chapter.

3. Follow a strict or lose parliamentary procedure.
Usually we have a pretty strict procedure. I don't know how many times we've yelled "point of order" to someone out of line. ;)

4. Whatever else you think relevant.
Once a month our AAC meets with Exec, but I think that's about it.
5. What suggestions for improvement you might have . . .
We definiately need to go over Parliamentary Procedure and ritual somemore.