1. Run a Successful General Membership Meeting SUMMARY: To run a successful General Membership Meeting (GMM) it is important to first have a Vision that matches the needs of your customer, your members. A GMM is an important part of any chapter and is the key means for bringing your members together for networking, distributing information, and learning. In addition, you should regularly review your chapter activities and plans with your company executives, and identify areas where your chapter can help them accomplish their vision. Your executives may identify key areas or topics that they would like disseminated to the employees. FUNDING: GMM costs can be covered through several sources. 1.Funding could come from the membership dues or by charging the cost of the meals. 2.Your HR department may pay for associated training topics, so check with them. 3.Working with your executives could provide funding for GMMs and/or for professional speakers which motivate, train or help disseminate the companies vision to the employees. Executives could encourage members of management to speak on company related topics. This is an excellent source of free speakers which would reduce the cost of your GMM. See QT 11 for additional ideas. http://nma1.org/Education/QuickTools.htmlhttp://nma1.org/Education/QuickTools.html 4.Holding opportunity drawings at your GMMs. 5.For additional fundraising ideas see QuickTool #1 and QuickTool #5. REQUIREMENTS: The cost of a successful GMM depends significantly on the size of your audience, if a meal is served, whether you use paid speakers and entertainment, if you pay for a facility to hold the meeting, and the creation and distribution of your advertising. Volunteer hours also depend on these factors. The larger the audience the more coordination is required. A small meeting can be handled by the Program chair. A larger meeting with a caterer, a rental facility, audio visual requirements, multiple volunteers on the agenda, speakers and/or entertainment, this would be overwhelming for one person so the program chair might possibly have a committee of 3 – 5 to assist with all the details required for a successful event. PROCESS: Begin the year by making sure that you have established and staffed a chapter programs organization (number of staff depends on the size of your organization) that will help you manage and implement program activities. Develop a plan (monthly, quarterly, etc.) of chapter GMMs for your annual calendar. Review your anticipated income and develop a budget with allocations for the planned GMMs. Determine the following: Location of GMM (in plant or at a hotel); Timing of GMM (lunch or after work); Scheduling of GMM (monthly, quarterly, etc.); Potential GMM topics and speaker sources ( free to paid-for speakers bureau); Marketing of GMM (flyer, website, email, other); How to RSVP for GMM (single contact, booster, online), What type of Program/Agenda for the GMM (hardcopy or printed); Should attendees sign-in/check-in for at GMM. Rev 11-11 QuickTool 17