How do I get a good turnout for a meeting?

Plan

The key to a good meeting is planning. The better you plan, the more likely you are to attract people to a meeting. Find an appropriate venue and book it in good time. Make sure the venue is accessible to everyone and in a place that will be familiar to most staff. Make sure you advertise the meeting time and stick to it. Most of our members are very busy and don't like long meetings, so give it a clear start time and a finish time and try not to go over time.

Speakers

A good way to ensure attendance is to have a guest speaker who can motivate attendees. Think about the important issues and try to find a speaker who can talk on this subject. Make sure your speaker knows when they are supposed to speak, how long to speak for and ensure that they stick to time. You don't want people leaving before your business is conducted.

Advertise

Make sure you advertise the meeting using posters, flyers and emails. If the meeting is open to potential members, ask members to bring along someone in their department who is not currently in the union.

Remind

It's a good idea to send regular reminders to all members, either via email or by printing out a small flyer and distributing it around the workplace. If you send out information for the meeting one month beforehand, you can send reminders each week until the week of the meeting. Also send out reminders on the day before the meeting.

Ask

Contact members that you know are reliable and ask them to encourage one or two other people in their department to come along to the meeting, they could offer to leave the department and attend the meeting together.

• Download advice on organising meetings [85kb]
• Download advice on running formal meetings [83kb]
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