How do you go about organising a meeting?
Plan
If it’s not an emergency issue, plan your meeting a couple of weeks in advance. The best time in schools is mostly at the end of the day – but you will know what the best time is for your members. If you find people don’t attend, don’t give up! You can always test out different times or even do a short survey of members on what times and subjects they want to see.
Advertise Make sure you advertise your meeting– cut out the poster template on the right-hand page, add yor own details, then photocopy for your union noticeboard. But don’t just stick up a poster – speak to your members to remind them or ask colleagues you can rely on to help drum up support.
Pick your subject
Always have an issue that your members care about as the main subject of the meeting and let them know it will be on the agenda. But make sure you are flexible if they all want to talk about something else. Help members feel it’s their meeting.
Prepare
So, you’ve got an interesting issue, you’ve picked your date and let everyone know the meeting is happening. What else do you need to prepare? Make sure you’ve checked your membership list so you know who’s entitled to be at a union meeting. It’s a good time to check everyone that you think is a member, actually is.
If you work in a bigger school or workplace and it’s difficult to communicate quickly with everyone, why not prepare a sign-in sheet to collect their contact details? Make sure you let people know you will only use their information to contact them about issues at work, and Check if there are any updates from national NEU campaigns or any CPD courses you may want to let members know about – there’s always lots of information on the website.
Use the opportunity to remind your members that they are part of the largest education union in the UK. You can order recruitment forms, leaflets and some freebies to give out. DON’T use it for anything else!