As the semester winds down and club activity slows down for deadlines and finals, it might be very helpful to meet briefly with some or all of your board members to review the club’s first semester. A meeting like this can take a long time since people will inevitably want to voice certain opinions. To save time and to get things done quickly, be sure to have clear goals outlined for the meeting.

A two-part outline for such a meeting:

A) Accomplishments: Reflecting on the things your club did well is a good way to boost morale and to highlight the strengths of the board. To save on time, try to come up with three to five of your club’s best accomplishments for the semester. Also, make a mental note about who on the board was involved in each of these accomplishments - it might help you to see how well the workload is distributed among the board.

B) Low Points: Try to come up with at least two low points from the first semester. Was it a missed deadline? Was it a sparsely-attended event? For each low point, jot down a few lessons learned from the experience, but avoid pointing fingers at individuals.

There are many ways to review the first half of the academic year. Surveys, feedback forms, or round table discussions can all function as useful methods for reflecting on the club’s performance. The important thing, however, is how you go about putting the results of the review to use. How can this new knowledge be used to motivate, improve, and expand your club? Next post, we’ll look at how to go from reflection to moving forward.

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Posted by Peter Kang