Board meetings serve as a central hub to develop an association’s strategy, address challenges and redefine long-term visions. As brilliant as they can be, without proper planning and structure, they can end up being inefficient and an ill use of time. To ensure that board meetings are productive and provide purpose, it’s important to create a plan.
Objectives
A well-structured agenda is the make or break of an effective board meeting. Instead of a simple list of discussion points, it’s important for the board and Admin Team to work together to create an agenda that defines clear objectives for each item.
Prioritise important issues and allocate time limits to each item. Distributing the agenda well in advance will give time for all members to prepare for the meeting.
Ensure that the agenda items align with the association’s overall goals and plans. For example, if key decisions need to be made ahead of an upcoming conference, ensure that the discussion surrounding this results in decisions and actionable outcomes.
Participation
Board meetings should always be engaging. Encouraging active discussion can be done by assigning agenda items to different board members, allowing them to lead the discussion on key topics.
The Admin Team play a crucial role in ensuring that the subsequent discussions remain balanced. If a board member raises a valuable point, but the conversation moves on too quickly, you must gently guide the discussion back on track. Similarly, if an action point comes up, immediately encourage one of the members to take ownership to prevent ideas from slipping away.
Watch the Clock
Time management is always a top priority. When creating the agenda, allocate specific time slots for each topic to prevent time from overrunning. It may be your responsibility to hurry discussions along or encourage board members to be more involved – discussions can always be explored in a follow up session later on.
Start and finish the meeting on time. Most board members for professional membership associations are volunteers, with a limited amount of time to dedicate. Ensuring that the meeting remains well paced and retains its intended structure, demonstrates a respect for everyone within the meeting.
Actions
When recording the meeting minutes, capture action points in a structured format. Include:
- What needs to be done
- Who is going to do it
- When it needs to be completed by
After the meeting, alongside the minutes, distribute an action list to help remind the board members of their responsibilities.
Engage
Engage not only with the board, but also with the wider membership. The decisions made during the meeting should reflect the needs of the members. Collecting and presenting feedback to the board is a key responsibility of the Admin Team – this helps to bridge the gap between the association’s leadership and its members.
How We Can Help
While there are a huge number of benefits to being part of a professional membership associations management committee, it’s important to realise that there are heavy responsibilities. Many tasks can seem quite daunting or time consuming, which is why it’s important to work alongside a reliable administration management team.
At Cygnul we work in partnership with our clients and are seen as trusted advisors to the Board. We can undertake the full range of membership, secretarial and bookkeeping services as well as offering advice and support to associations around the UK. If you want to explore how these services could help your organisation, please get in touch with us.