Chapter Activity: Assess Your Chapter's Health

It is very easy for active chapters to overlook their own general health. At least once each year, it is important for chapter officers and volunteers to stop, take a breath, step back, and plan for the chapter’s future. In the busy day-to-day lives of chapter volunteers, this is often the last “activity” chapters think about, let alone plan.

Here are a few effective ideas that might appeal to your chapter board.

Set up an annual chapter calendar.
· Use a large wall-size calendar with all twelve months on one side.

· Start by noting all three-day holiday weekends, state holidays, and religious holidays.

· Mark the first and last week of school and school vacation weeks.

· Highlight major school events. This information is usually available by August from the student activities’ coordinators at the respective schools your chapter serves. These kinds of events might include proms or other regularly scheduled semi-formal events, Homecoming weekends, or other routine grade-wide occasions.

· Note major national sports events.

· Mark national, state, and local election days.

· Mark other well-known regular local events such as Town Meeting, church fairs, Lions Club breakfasts, Town Day, etc.

· Note regular meeting nights of key organizations in your community such as the school board, the mayor’s council, etc.

· Include known, annual chapter events that occur without variation such as application deadlines, regular fundraisers, annual meetings, other special events that should not be overlooked.

· Fill in regular chapter meeting dates, planning dates, committee timelines, etc.

This exercise helps chapters balance the year around their own activities as well as puts its calendar in the context of other major community events. It also helps committee chairs plan out their event schedules, makes public relations easier because important events and dates are evident well in advance, and also helps chapter volunteers plan their own lives more effectively. It is an invaluable tool for chapter presidents who are trying to manage the entire year and who can prepare better meeting agendas and supervise the overall chapter operation.

Evaluate the health of your chapter.
· Start with the Chapter Checklist (found in the Chapter Guidebook or call your regional office) and the Financial Checklist.

· Use the topic areas to assess the chapter’s strength in several key operational areas.

· Once areas of concern have been identified, use the specific points to help brainstorm steps needed to address those concerns.

· Set strategies and identify time limits to correct the areas of greatest concern.

Introduce long-range planning for the chapter.
· Set up a separate committee to tackle this challenge.

· Consider planing a chapter retreat for all volunteers. Look at and plan for the next year and beyond.

· Plan for one day or even overnight.

· Look for a donated venue (cottage, local hotel meeting room, etc.) that is away from the usual distractions, including cell phones.

· Plan the topics for discussion in advance.

· Closely structure the day and the schedule.

· Arrange for meals and ongoing refreshments.

· Conclude with measurable objectives and assigned responsibilities.

· Set deadlines for reports of results and other identified progress.

· Set a deadline for assessing the effectiveness of the planning effort and plan for another retreat-like setting to review the exercise.

· Inject an element of fun in the process.

· Consider contracting with a paid facilitator to keep things on track during the retreat itself and then to assist with follow up afterwards. Consultants in this field can cost $1,000 or more but are often instrumental in keeping the chapter focused on meeting the targeted objectives and achieving success. Look for a local sponsor for this exercise to help offset the cost.

 

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