DJs Thursday Tip - Turn your Volunteer Meeting into an event!

Thanks to a recommendation from a colleague I will attempt a regular feature on this Blog called DJs Thursday Tip!

Today’s is - Turn your Volunteer Meeting into an event.

Need to provide training updates or in-service?

If you have volunteer meetings throughout the year my tip is to make them really interesting to attract the numbers. Meetings are great to update volunteers on new procedures and to update volunteers on training and changes within your organisation.

One upon a time, many moons ago my volunteer meetings were run like a committee meeting. It bored the pants of many and numbers were low. I then decided to run meetings that included all the material of the “Boring” meeting and dressed it up with exciting additions. I included guest speakers. Sometimes speakers who had nothing to do with volunteerism but who had something interesting to say to 100 plus people!

I incorporated some educational entertainment – YouTube videos, Trivia questions, Workshops etc. I worked hard on making meetings more participatory.

I invited volunteers to help set the agenda of meetings. And they did! I established quarterly meetings running 2 and half hours and now they are all very well attended. They’ve become events with a high standard! And so they should.

Volunteer meetings are very important to the success of your volunteer program

So my 5 tips for fab meetings is to make them

·         Fun

·         Educational

·         Partly based on volunteer suggestions

·         Interactive

·         Different! Every time!

Now there’s a challenge for you every time!