Meeting Tips
THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE THE MEETING
Location, Location, Location!
If you're not officially recognized by the school (and they don't allow non-student orgs to reserve meeting space) - don't let that deter you from having a meeting. If the weather is decent, you can meet outside at a well known landmark and either have the meeting
there or decide where to go once everyone meets up. You could also
meet in a public place on campus that doesn't need to be reserved (i.e.
a dining hall, student union, etc.).
If you are recognized by your school and you can reserve meeting
space, keep in mind that you ideally want a place that's easy to find,
easy to get to. It also might help to schedule all of your meetings in
the same place, so that members always know where to go.
Meeting Content
For your own sake, it’s best to lay out an outline of how things you’d like to cover during the meeting
in advance. You can collaborate with other officers and active members
to see what everyone wants to do. Giving an introduction to SSDP is a
good idea, especially since there will proably be many first
time attendees there. Returning members could speak briefly about
things they have learned from SSDP and their experiences with past
chapter events/activities/meetings.
If you’re an already established chapter, be sure to invite your
members from last year and encourage them to bring someone new who
hasn’t been to a meeting before. Also, it can
help to reflect back on previous chapter activities to evaluate what
worked and what didn’t. You may also want to discuss this at the meeting and let everyone weigh in on what they would like to see from the chapter in terms of the whole upcoming year.
If you’re a brand new chapter and this is your first meeting ever, be sure to be in touch with your regional outreach director and we’ll be more than happy to give you some more detailed and specific advice on what to do during your first meeting.
GET THE WORD OUT!
- Create a facebook event, have all of the officers/active
members invite their friends. If you haven't started a facebook group
for your chapter, it's a great tool to use when organizing students,
here's a short video tutorial walking you through the process:
- Sidewalk chalk! (may want to check to see if it's cool with
your administrators, but it's chalk, most places shouldn't object)
Check out some of the masterpieces UMD SSDP has created for inspiration.
- Make announcements in your classes (it's best to ask the
professor first, haha) - it's really not that scary, honest! You just
need to say "hey my name is ___, I'd like to invite you all to my
student org meeting, we're SSDP and give a short schpiel about why they
should care.
- Freshmen! – tabling at new student orientations, tabling at
student organization fairs, collecting e-mails of interested students
outside of diners, dorms, other high traffic areas on campus.
- Guerilla tabling/flyering - You don't necessarily need to
officially reserve anything to table. All you need is a few people,
some clip boards with sign up sheets, and possibly a
sign/poster/banner. Once you have a flyer with all of your meeting
info on it, you can shrink it so that 4 fit on a page, they save paper
& money, and people are less likely to throw them away because
they're small and can fit in your pocket. You can also post signs
around campus, lots of class buildings will have bulletin boards that
anyone can use, dorm buildings/residence halls are a great place to put
up flyers too. Check out the flyers page of our resources section on our website.
Set up in high traffic areas around campus (near dining halls, outside
of dorms, around class buildings, libraries, etc.) and just ask people
as they walk by if they'd be interested in SSDP. Of course, I'm sure
you can probably come up with a much more creative pitch than that, for
example: "Hey, how's it going today? Do you think the war on drugs is
working? [insert blank stare or big fat "no!" here. If they say
"yes", ask them to explain their position to you ] Well, neither do
we. Students for Sensible Drug Policy is a group that thinks drug
prohibition has failed, it hasn't stopped people from using or abusing
drugs, it puts addicts in prison, erodes our individual freedoms, and
is a waste of tax payer dollars, so we think there must be a better way
to approach the issue of drug policy." Also, "Think we should be
putting adults in prison for marijuana?" is a great one as well.
THINGS TO CONSIDER AT THE MEETING
Break the ice
There
are lots of fun ways you can break the ice, especially if there are
lots of new people there who don’t know each other. Depending on how
many people show up, you could go around and have everyone introduce
themselves and explain why they are there/how they found out about
SSDP. Or you could ask people to get up and introduce themselves to
someone they don’t know, then everyone could share something they
learned about their partner (I know it sounds like a cheesy middle
school thing to do, but things like this help people feel engaged and
connected, not to mention get to know each other better and make
friends). I’m sure you can come up with more creative things as well.
Get everyone pumped!
Don’t forget – being a part of SSDP
is fun, too! Of course, we’re serious about the issues that we care
about, but lots of people really cherish the social bonds they’ve
created by being a part of SSDP. Especially chapter leaders should try
to exhibit enthusiasm and confidence, it will help people come back
again if they see that the leadership is excited and organized. Also,
rousing discussions can (and should!) be a fun way to get people
thinking and talking about issues of drug policy reform and can help
develop individual opinions on the subject. Fun activities help a lot
in the way of keeping people’s attention and keeping them coming back.
In addition to the sometimes dry part of a meeting
(event planning, strategic planning, policies & ways to change
them) – try to incorporate something like a short video screening or
sharing a recent article, piece of literature, or something like that.
As far as videos, here are a couple suggestions:
"The Student
Movement to End the War on Drugs" SSDP's International Conference 2006 -
gives a really excellent overview of the organization, created from
shots taken during our conference in 2006
10 minute version
Extended version (about 20 minutes)
“BUSTED – the citizens guide to police encounters”, 45 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA
“Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! – The War on Drugs” – 30 minutes
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3025396475247394113
any of these Law Enforcement Against Prohibition videos
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B6F40302D7D5C796&search_query=law+enforcement+against+prohibition
or even shorter clips such as those found on SSDP’s YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/user/SSDP
Gather people's information
You can use the SSDP sign up sheets (can be downloaded and printed here: http://ssdp.org/resources/sample-materials ), you could make your own, and/or pass around a laptop. It's up to
you how much information you want to ask people to give you, but in my
mind the more the better.
Let them know how to find you.
Make sure to mention how
people can be in contact with the chapter/leadership. Reminding them
to join the facebook group and/or listservs is helpful, and you can
also send a follow up e-mail reminding them if you collect their e-mail
addresses.
Give them something to take home.
You might consider preparing a handout that has your meeting
schedule and/or list of upcoming events/deadlines, group officers and
e-mail addresses, or any other contact information or things you think
they'd find useful.
Take pictures & video!!!
You can upload them to our flickr pool: http://www.flickr.com/groups/486103@N23/pool/
And
you can also upload them to your chapter facebook group, and/or send
them to your regional outreach director if you’d like them to appear on
SSDP’s website. Plus, we really like to see you guys in action, so let
us know where to find any media you might have of your meetings.
