Chapter Meetings- Need some advice!

[Faith4Keep]

How formal are your chapter meetings? (I apologize in advance for the length of this!)

My chapter meeting is more formal than I like. We strictly follow an agenda of several (20 or so) officer reports. A Vice-President reports, and then any officers in her group then report. We continue this until all the VP groups have reported. Chapter members are not allowed to talk during the reports (which take hours, sometimes!) unless they are acknowledged for a logistics quesiton (Can you repeat the location?). During voting procedures we do heads-down hands up- but the procedure prior to voting (motion to bring such and such to the table, second, discussion, motion to vote) doesn't exist, although I really wish it would!!!


I need your advice:
What it boils down to is this- the way my chapter meetings are run is so strict that sisters do not feel they can raise their hand and say something in opposition to an idea, or to contribute their own ideas. They are afraid of talking in front of the entire chapter because it is intimidating! Then, when we have situations girls don't bring up their opinions in chapter. Even if a officer asks for suggestions (Does anyone have any ideas on how to improve on our philanthropy event?), girls stay quiet.

For example, a social is cancelled for "bad behavior" of the chapter. This is announced in chapter with no real explanation as to how the leadership came to the decision. Girls do not want to say anything in chapter, but after chapter run their mouths and gossip with one another!!

Personally I have a HUGE problem with this. Firstly, I feel one of the golden rules of leadership is that you cannot FORCE someone to get excited about something they had no part of creating or developing; meaning, I feel our attendance or chpater morale at our own events is low because the sisters did not contribue to the idea- it is Sally Sister's event, not XYZ's event. In the same sense, I feel that a sorority is supposed to develop you into a refined woman. In the real world, if you want something done a certain way you have to speak up and SAY IT! Nothing will be accomplished by sitting in a staff meeting, thinking something is being done wrong, and gossiping about it after...!

Unfortunately, I am just a chapter member and hold a small officer position, and ideas to change the way things are done are not taken seriously unless you are a member of exec. This too, I disagree with, since I thinking that we are all members of the same group and we should all be able to contribute!

Worse- chapter is so strict and we have to stay silent for so long (sometimes up to 3 hours!) that some members get increasingly upset and others grow increasingly apathetic.


I have 3 ideas:
1. Because our bylaws say we go by Roberts Rules, is to use my RR knowledge to my advantage and to bring this up in chapter. I'm sure everyone would look at me crazy for interrupting a chapter meeting but I feel like this is the only way to get my point across.

2. Attempt to get an Exec position next year and change everything! While I'm definitely capable of doing so, I don't really have the time for this- I just want my ideas heard and taken seriously.

3. Talk to the President or other exec members. So far this hasn't worked.



... help!

[33girl]

How many people are in your chapter?

I'm sure that the larger the chapter, the stricter you have to be about following Roberts' or the meetings would go on forever.

Although the part about cancelling the social for "bad behavior" made me . If the membership voted for the social to begin with, how can their vote be disregarded with no discussion? That's far too much power for exec to have, IMO.

[kathykd2005]

This post gets a little too much into ritual for me to make a detailed comment, but I agree--cancelling a social for bad behavior is TOO MUCH POWER for exec to have. I suggest you speak to your National HQ about this situation.

[Faith4Keep]

Originally Posted by 33girl

How many people are in your chapter?

I'm sure that the larger the chapter, the stricter you have to be about following Roberts' or the meetings would go on forever.

Although the part about cancelling the social for "bad behavior" made me . If the membership voted for the social to begin with, how can their vote be disregarded with no discussion? That's far too much power for exec to have, IMO.

I think we have around 140 total. I heard that before I came in chapter meetings went on for 3 or 4 hours! Longest I've experience is 3 (plus a couple candle passes!).

The cancelling the social thing was just an example. We don't vote to have socials, they get planned and happen for us. Our social chair works with social chairs of fraternities that she thinks would be good to have socials with. We did, however, have a situation this semseter where there was "bad behaviors" at one of our socials, and the President and Advisor warned us we may not have a formal ! This would have been the first formal for the most recent PC and the last formal for seniors! In the end, it was decided that instead of cancelling it they made it dry- but sisters felt they may as well have cancelled it since the dry thing made about 40 sisters choose not to go... mostly seniors. But when your talking about those 40 people PLUS their dates-- we WAY overpaid for food, seats, venue, etc.

Sisters were obviously not happy with the decision made, but no one got to have a say in the situation... or at least, no one spoke up in chapter about it....

[ForeverRoses]

do you have standing committees that help the exec/chairs? For example- the social chair- does she do everything herself or does she use a committee to help plan things? If used to thier full potential, committees would empower all members of the group to feel like the are contributing something.

It is hard for large groups to have an open forum for every topic. You say now that chapter may last 3+ hours. Imagine how long they would last if you had open forum for each topic.

Maybe consider a gavel pass/mascot pass where everyone gets a chance to ask a question about a topic covered during the evening. Pass the gavel, have each person ask one question.

[Faith4Keep]

Originally Posted by ForeverRoses

do you have standing committees that help the exec/chairs? For example- the social chair- does she do everything herself or does she use a committee to help plan things? If used to thier full potential, committees would empower all members of the group to feel like the are contributing something.

It is hard for large groups to have an open forum for every topic. You say now that chapter may last 3+ hours. Imagine how long they would last if you had open forum for each topic.

Maybe consider a gavel pass/mascot pass where everyone gets a chance to ask a question about a topic covered during the evening. Pass the gavel, have each person ask one question.

Well... we have committees, but they only meet once a semester and do very little. Each sister is required to be on a committee, so some committees are 20+ people. Other, less popular committees only have 7. IMO, committees don't really do anything, we just do it because we have to. Social chair, sisterhood chair, philanthropy chair, service chair- they all have committees but really do everything on their own.

[AlwaysSAI]

My Phi Sigma Pi chapter meetings are run using Roberts Rules of order, but we are not silent during the meeting what so ever! If a person has a question, they are supposed to raise their hand and say "Point of Information" or "Query"

It sounds like there's not much discussion going on in your meetings. Something we often do if we feel something needs to be discussed is that the president will say, "I will now entertain a motion to open the floor for discussion of XYZ matter." A member then has to make a motion-"I motion that we discuss XYZ matter." Then the member is asked to justify their desire for the discussion, the President will ask for a Pro (reason we should discuss it) and ask it of the person who made the motion. The response to Pro is usually something like, "So we can see how the brotherhood feels about XYZ matter" or "So we can get an opinion from the brotherhood." It's then run like a pro con debate. Pro (one person says a pro), con (one person says a con) and so on until someone makes a motion to end discussion.

It works really, really, really well. Although, in some situations, our meeting have run for hours. The meeting where the exec board was elected last almost 8 hours. But, normally, our meetings are done in an hour and we also go through every officer report and every committee.

I hope that helps and can offer some useful suggestions.

[AlphaFrog]

Is there any way some of the officers could do reports via email/handouts/report sheet, etc?? I know people who generally hold those type postions are the people who enjoy commanding a room, but for the sake of sanity, maybe you could talk to someone about that.

[adpiucf]

One thing you CAN do this summer is to look at your chapter bylaws. These should be brought up for amending and discussion annually. Some things you can introduce into the bylaws are the length of chapter meetings and officer announcements, opportunities for non-officers to speak, etc. You can propose these amendments.

One possible and immediate option is to ask to attend an exec board meeting and discuss your concerns. Don't just complain-- recommend solutions. How can you get in and out of meeting in less time, and how can chapter members feel more included in the chapter leadership processes?

Suggestions:
1) Exec should host a semesterly "Town Hall" style membership education meeting, like a workshop, as a time for the chapter members to express feelings, frustrations and concerns. This worked well for another ADPi chapter I used to work with. In lieu of chapter meeting you have "paper chapter" with your announcements on your meeting agenda and the time alloted is spent as a membership "training,"-- in this case, an opportunity to air grievances and work together to effect solutions. Instead of just complaining, members must offer a challenge and a recommended solution. The chapter writes out and assigns goals and timelines. It really works.

2) I think it is a huge problem that the UCF chapters allow serenades and external announcements during chapter meeting time. It may be fun to get visitors, but it eats up your evening. A better time to do this would be during chapter dinner or a free period before the meeting begins. Another school I worked with did this and we were in and out of chapter in 30 minutes-- it took me longer to drive there and back than the amount of time I sat in the meeting! Limiting external announcements and serenades to before chapter begins may help.

3) The officers don't need to talk so much. There should be meeting agendas handed out each week and the bulk of the officers' reports can be listed on these agendas. Some weeks, there may be an important issue, but an officer like the Intramurals Chairman really shouldn't have to say anything but, "Please refer to the agenda for my report" so members know when the next softball game is.

4) Committees. The chapter officers can only do so much on their own and it empowers non-officers to consider leadership positions and develop leadership experience and teamwork opportunities when committees are formed to support the officers and the chapter projects.

My experience, and the experiences of my friends in UCF sororities, was that our meetings were all very formal. Without naming names, some sororities required their members and officers to get any announcements approved up to 72 hours in advance for chapter meeting.

That may seem ridiculous to most, but with chapters that range between 100-180 members, we would honestly be there all night if everyone talked whenever they had an idea. Similarly, "open forum" time is often squashed in the interests of time.

If a meeting can operate "smarter," there will be time for members to offer up any concerns or solutions. However, do be warned that there may be a crazy in your chapter and that this can be squashed if it gets out of hand.

The social chairs at UCF may operate differently than at other school-- right or wrong, the chapter is at the mercy of the social chair to plan socials. And the social chair is at the mercy of the fraternities to call her back and coordinate the events together. Some chapters have less luck than others and can't coordinate events with the fraternities that the chapter might enjoy mixing with. That's more political than anything else, but I digress. If a social event is cancelled for standards reasons, you should look into your chapter bylaws... was every single sister out of control? Maybe the answer is holding a workshop on social conduct or mature alcohol management, or going to GAMMA meetings. If you start cancelling socials, word gets around to the fraternities and you have even more trouble planning events. Plus, chapter members can get disgruntled, and then you start having retention issues. I don't know how "bad" everyone was at the event in question, but those are just some thoughts... Cancelling a social is pretty extreme. There may have been other issues that exec wasn't sharing with you.

Anyway, that's my advice... good luck. I wouldn't go out and form a dissenters committee b/c that can backfire, but there's nothing wrong with talking the chapter officers about your concerns and suggesting ways to make things better.