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Facilitating Meetings
Set an agenda for each green living program (GLP) meeting, making sure those who will be running the meeting—most likely, the captains with the coordinator—have had a chance to include the items they think are important. Share the agenda with everyone before or at the beginning of the meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page and knows what to expect. To avoid having to change your agenda too much during the meeting, seek input in advance. Consider going around the table to get feedback from the GLP reps or steering group members to ensure that everyone has the chance to bring up their points.
Who Does What at Which Meetings
At the steering group meetings, the coordinator facilitates the discussion. At the rep meetings, the coordinator takes notes, keeps time and helps address any areas that the captains cannot address.
At the steering group meetings, the captains offer their important and unique perspectives. At the rep meetings, the captains facilitate the discussion and go over the reps’ work for the upcoming checklist period.
Empowerment Through Meetings: Inviting an “Expert Guest”
The reps need to feel empowered by the meetings, especially if you are only meeting once every two weeks. They should feel like they were educated by the meeting and are ready to go out and educate their peers in the residence halls about the campaign topics. Consider inviting a guest expert, such as a steering group member, to the meeting to speak about the campaign subject, whether it is lighting, sustainable dining, recycling or anything else. If the reps have an hour or so to listen to and ask questions of an expert in the area they will be addressing during the checklist period, then they will feel more prepared to be an educator on the subject.
Hand Signals as a Facilitation Tool
With 15 to 20 or more students, all of whom have great ideas and visions, it can be difficult to facilitate GLP meetings. Consider learning facilitation hand signals and teaching the reps to use them during meetings. Hand signals make responding to questions more efficient and quickly give you a sense of whether reps agree or disagree with a particular idea.
Meeting Length and Content
In the first year of Harvard University's GLP, the student meetings lasted one hour. In the second and third years, they blossomed into 1.5-hour meetings. While brevity is always nice and you must recognize that students have busy schedules, meetings are your face-to-face time with the group. Use it to talk about upcoming activities, review the checklist, get feedback from the previous two weeks, brainstorm future activities and generally interact as a whole unit.
Pay
Meetings should count as paid time to encourage your reps to be present. After all, if they do not show up, you and the captains will have to catch them up, which will take time away from your other important tasks.