We’re Looking for Your Ideas for General Membership Meetings
General Membership Discussion
The following ideas came from the November 2008 General Membership Meeting. The discussion focused on why more people don’t come to General Membership Meetings and what we can do to get more people to come regularly to the meeting.
Background:
General Membership meetings are open to all Lyndale community members which include people who live or work in the neighborhood. The purpose of the meetings is to provide a forum to discuss important neighborhood issues and to have a vehicle for making important neighborhood decisions.
Please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments below. Questions about General Membership meetings, contact Mark Hinds at 612.824.9402 ext 16 or mark@lyndale.org.
Why don’t more people come:
- People don’t know what a general membership meeting is? Don’t know what LNA is? They don’t know why it’s important.
- People already know what’s going on.
- People don’t come because there aren’t big problems.
- People use to get calls reminding them to come.
What are some ways we can attract more people:
- Try and utilize block captains to try and get someone from the block to come.
- Try to find ways to include food at the meetings.
- Make sure people know if there is going to be an important vote.
- Have restaurants showcase their food.
- Advertise that the meeting needs a quorum.
- Efficiency is important to the meetings.
- Change the name to drop the term membership.
- Give people one thing that will be useful at each meeting.
- Kids from Y & F used to be responsible for making punch and someone used to bring food. Kids had some responsibility.
- As a part of our loan and other programs, make general membership a requirement or expectation as part of the program.
- It’s good to have Leonardo’s here.
Ways to make the meetings more interesting:
- Add a 10 or 15 minutes activity interval at each meeting.
- Have a report on crime in the neighborhood once every few meetings.
- Hold contests for which blocks can get the most people to the meeting.
- Use the E-News to try and get people to invite their friends to come.
Top priorities coming out of the discussion
- Discuss changing the name
- Continue to invite special speakers
- Announce on the front page of the news paper what’s happening - will be implemented starting in January
- Potentially next meeting at the YMCA – Will happen in February
- Building block clubs
