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Student Organization Manual
Organizational Basics

How to Run an Effective Meeting

There are four components to running an effective and efficient meeting:

1. Before the meeting, develop an agenda to know what items need to be addressed.
2. During the meeting, follow parliamentary procedure in conducting the meeting.
3. During the meeting, facilitate good discussion on the relevant issues.
4. After the meeting, write and distribute minutes to document what took place during the meeting.

Agendas

Making an agenda involves thinking over the topics to be discussed and listing them in appropriate order of discussion. This eliminates wasted time in your meetings and promotes efficient and productive discussion. In advance of the meeting, discuss the agenda with the other officers and your advisor. If the meeting is one that will include some discussion requiring careful thought, it would be helpful to drop your members brief notes a few days before the meeting outlining the agenda and requesting them to give the items listed some consideration.

A typical agenda would include:

1. Opening
   a. Call to Order
   b. Roll Call
   c. Approval of minutes of the previous meeting
   d. Review of the agenda for the meeting
2. Reports
   a. Officers
   b. Committees
3. Business
   a. Unfinished (old) business
   b. New Business
4. Announcements
5. Adjournment