There have been some general questions on how the teams should work, and I figured I’d set up a basic list of suggestions that you may find helpful. Take what you think makes sense for you.
Concerning meetings
- How often should Teams meet? This depends on many factors, including deadlines for projects, and how your team dynamics work (sometimes, small teams can get a lot done with email and phone calls). Generally, at this point, I would suggest meeting every two or three weeks, with some emailing between meetings. Later on, this may change.
- Location: Use the studio. It’s ours. We pay rent. Some teams have met in members’ homes and also at A Step Above (Quality Foods) for a different atmosphere. My take on this is that if you don’t like the station’s atmosphere, work to change it and beautify the space. Still, good coffee and snacks and just a different space can generate a lively atmosphere — and may generate some public interest as well (keep personal comments especially at bay in public areas, though). Our station is sadly not accessible to those with mobility issues, which is really unfortunate, and temporary.
- Lead-up time: Set up meeting times at least one week before the meeting date; respect the fact that people have busy lives and schedules.
- The Teams all have their own internal group email addresses; Use these to contact people. If you don’t know who is on a particular list, ask the admin. e.g. pompomfun@cjmp.ca, and Programmers@cjmp.ca, policies@cjmp.ca, tech@cjmp.ca and to email all teamleaders@cjmp.ca . Note that ONLY people who are on the internal members lists for each of these teams may email the particular group (i.e. if you are not on the list encompassed by, say, teamleaders@cjmp.ca, you will not be able to email teamleaders@cjmp.ca; same goes for the rest of the teams’ group emails). CJMP’s administrator (admin@cjmp.ca) alone controls who is on which list.
- Use the online calendar: Fill in the online calendar with the meeting date, time, location and team name. Make sure you’re not overlapping at the same time OR place as another meeting! Inform the secretary of the impending meeting and send him/her the details. Or if you have a Gmail account, fill it in yourself. A little reminder on our Facebook page is great too, as a backup (use the group’s mailing list as a first resource!)
- Quick reminder of meetings with agenda: Remind your members 2 or 3 days before via email, with an agenda and previous meeting minutes. Ask if there are additions to the agenda: involve your members! Make a motion to accept the minutes as they stand or as altered.
- Keep meetings short and focused. Try your best to keep meetings under 1 hour; people need to plan their time, so keep the flow rolling and try to avoid getting side-tracked. Never hesitate to ask the board (board@cjmp.ca) or your Team’s board liaison for advice on what to focus on at any particular time.
- Note-taker: Have a note-taker and a chairperson for each meeting; feel free to rotate these positions, as everyone should be able to chair at some point. Make sure the Chair and note-taker names appear in the minutes.
- Have copies of the agenda for everyone. Agendas should be about 1/2 a page, so you can probably print 2/page.
- Have a copy of the last meeting minutes on hand; some people like to read them over out loud at meetings, too.
- Stay on the agenda (this is a biggie): Ask at the beginning of the meeting if there are agenda items to be added (you will have emailed people 2 or 3 days before to ask this as well); if there are additions, then add these to the end of the agenda, telling the person(s) that you will get to this only if there is time.
- Stay on the agenda Part 2: Follow the agenda. If a boisterous personality takes over the meeting and goes off-agenda, politely state that there is an agenda that needs to be completed, and that they should wait until the end of the meeting to follow the off-topic aspect. It’s disrespectful to the others at the meeting who may have submitted agenda items, to be side-tracked by Foghorn Leghorn, there.
- What to include in the meeting minutes/notes from the meeting:Meeting minutes must include:
- Name of the team;
- meeting date, location and start time;
- who attended;
- if anyone sent their regrets, include this;
- the agenda items and what were the results of the discussions;
- next meeting date/time;
- the meeting’s end time;
- Indicate Action Items: It makes sense to have an ‘action item’ list that can go right at the top of the meeting minutes: It’s really important to have certain tasks assigned to specific members. This increases ‘buy-in’ and helps maintain energy and interest, and gets the job done. Try not to have more than three main tasks for your team members, and again, task these out. Delegate, but with firm commitments and deadlines.
- Write the minutes soon after the meeting: Send out meeting minutes to the board and your team members as soon as you can after the meeting — you’d be amazed by how much gets forgotten within a few days. Plus, you will want to have your team members reminded of tasks they need to perform.
Note that all team minutes are posted on the cjmp website, so they are also public… write up minutes accordingly. You may want to also read up on what the other teams are up to, to avoid overlapping
Use the public meetings (roughly 1 per month) as a time to collect what your team has done and what you want to do, and make this public: always keep an eye on recruiting new talent to your team.
