Suhas,
Sometimes even the enticement of good food doesn't work as well as we might expect. What from the list of suggestions might you apply to your next meeting?
R. Roehrich
Some good suggestions that I will definitely consider for the next advisory board meeting. Our recent advisory board meeting was not well attended despite it being in a reputable restaurant.
Hildie,
Those are excellent suggestions. I will definitely remember them when I start the invites for our board. Thank you for the advise.
Linda Vetter
Linda,
I am new at creating Advisory Boards but I can tell you what I did to get my members to participate. I had to start from the beginning and create the Board. I started by contacting individuals in the community and asked if they would be interested in joing our Advisory Board. Once I spoke to the individuals I sent them a formal invitation to join with a informative packet about our college. After I received notice of who would join I sent thank you cards with an anticpated date for the first meeting. Once date was established I sent invitations with Agenda and ,lunch menu(food will always get them) to each. Most of the member RSVPed but for the ones that didn't I dropped them a friendly phone call. I had a board of 21 members and 15 showed for my first meeting.
Yes, I do all of these things - except send the actual materials in advance (however I do send the agenda), so I will try this with my next meeting scheduled for September. Thanks for the tip! TJ
Teri and Linda,
I'm sure you will gain many ideas and strategies from this course to improve attendance at your board meetings. Here's an advance teaser: clearly communicate your mission and goals to the board; create meaningful agendas with clear expectations, send pre-meeting materials to your members about two weeks in advance of the meeting, serve quality catered food, pre-meeting, and contact each board member by phone 48 hours in advance of your meeting to encourage attendance. Follow all this with an engaging meeting that starts and ends precisely on time.
I look forward to your continued participation in OP-110.
R. Roehrich
Hi Linda,
Attendance and participation are my biggest problem as well. On paper my advisory committee is adequate, unfortunately I can't say the same for accomplishments. Hopefully the information in this course will help us motivate the members!
Teri
Linda,
Welcome to OP-110! Please forgive me for not answering your question directly, but you will have your answer as you proceed through the course. If I were to provide an answer now, I would be diluting the value of your course experience. I hope you understand that this is not avoiding your question, just trying to stimulate your continued work.
R. Roehrich
