Re-energizing Your General Membership Meetings

Topics:

• Keep topics fresh and up-to-date.
• If you use an old topic, consider a new twist on it.
• If you run panel sessions, have you updated the questions?
• Learn from other chapters! Try successful program topics from other chapters. The RMA Web site keeps an up-to-date list of chapter programs. In addition, the new Programming Toolbox offers helpful tips and ideas on topics.

Networking:

The most likely reason members will attend your meetings is for the opportunity to do some quality networking. This is especially true of Professional members. You can increase this opportunity for your members by doing the following:

• Build in time for people to meet and greet before or after the meeting.
• Ensure attendees have name tags giving their name, title, and bank.
• Consider seating arrangements that do not allow people to sit with their colleagues.
• Assign the board the task of promoting this networking. Your board members should be recognizable. Give them special namet ags and introduce them.
• Recognize new members in the audience.

Speakers:

• Is dynamic and fun to listen to.
• Can hold your audience's attention by offering examples that hit home.
• Understands your audience and how the topic may affect them.
• Knows the topic. (Check with others to verify this.)
• Will not deliver a commercial about a product or service.
• Is professional and not likely to engage in off-color humor or degrading remarks when presenting.
• Does not endorse competitive products, services, or organizations other than RMA.

  Note: Be careful not to overuse a speaker or speakers.

Timing:

• Don't be afraid to mix things up and try a different venue or time of day.
• If you serve both a city and the suburbs, consider placing events in both.
• Does rush hour traffic before or after work hours affect your program times?
• What time of the month is busiest in a bank? In the quarter? In the year? Consider these items when selecting dates.

Notices:

• Send your event notice early by e-mail at four weeks out, possibly following up by mail some three weeks out, then e-mail again two weeks out. A final follow-up the day prior to the event is usually effective.
• Use your board (Ambassador Program) to call those institutions that are light in attendance.
• Use your bank (Ambassador Program) to ask the key contact if he or she will circulate your flyer throughout the institution.
• Use save-the-date postcards or e-mails for your biggest events.
• Make sure your notices attract attention, sell the benefits of your program, and make people want to attend.
• Try color and graphics or interesting formats and paper.
• Make sure you don't send the notices too early or too late for people to plan to attend.
• An updated mailing list is critical to success.

Tips for Boosting Attendance

Attendance either makes or breaks a chapter program. The difference in just five to 15 more attendees can determine whether or not your event makes money or loses it. Chapters with successful attendence numbers often use similar techniques. Consider the following:

• If your current dinner format is not working, try something new! Chances are that your membership needs a new format-perhaps breakfast or lunch-that does not cut into members' evenings. Meetings should be cost efficient and time efficient.
• If you are conducting lunchtime sessions, is it easy for attendees to make it to the event or do traffic and location keep them away?
• Are you using an Ambassador Program at each of your local banks to ensure that the event flyer is being distributed?
• Have you conducted local surveys asking if you are choosing the right time of day? Ask members to fill in the survey and tell them that, from the surveys received, one person will win a prize.
• Nobody enjoys bad food. Make sure the menu for your event is not too experimental.
• Did the board members bring along some colleagues from their institutions?
• Get students involved with your chapter. Both graduate and undergraduate students in financial services majors make very receptive attendees (if the price is right) and are looking for networking opportunities.
• Invite your local bank presidents and senior credit officers, lending officers, and risk officers. If the bank's chief executive and senior management are coming to meetings, then the general members from that bank will follow!
• Give a special invitation to senior management. Get on the phone and call if necessary; offer them the opportunity to attend as a guest, free of charge, if they are not regulars.
• Handwrite short notes to key people, seeking their attendance and involvement.
• Set up a VIP table for executives where they can network with each other, which will increase the meeting's value for them. An invitation to sit at a VIP table will be viewed as a special invitation.
• Plan to identify and recognize all senior executives at your VIP table.

How to Use Meeting Sponsors

Sponsors can be a big benefit to your chapter in a variety of ways. In addition to providing a source of revenue to help pay for meeting costs, they can boost attendance and expose other groups to RMA and your chapter.

• Ask a program committee member to take the responsibility for contacting potential sponsors.
• Enlist sponsors through known contacts (vendors, clients, associates, etc.).
• Sponsors can include attorneys, CPAs, title companies, real estate agents, environmental firms, legal firms, and vendors (Deloitte & Touché, Equifax, etc.).
• Start out charging between $250 and $500 for meeting sponsorship.
• Allow sponsors to have signs at the meeting, free attendance, their name on the registration form, and the opportunity to speak for a minute or two at the start of the meeting.

How to Try Joint Events

Many other professional organizations operate in your chapter's market. Team up with them and plan a joint meeting. Joint meetings can:

• Increase the potential audience and expose a new group to RMA.
• Double the resources devoted to setting up and running the meeting.
• Broaden the networking arena for members.

Groups that make good joint meetings: The local AICPA chapter, the local Financial Women International chapter, the local Turnaround Management Association chapter, state banking associations, the local Bar Association chapter, and the local Chamber of Commerce.

Be Original

Try different time slots or meeting formats. Several chapters have gone on-site for tours of facilities. Here are some examples:

• Puget Sound Chapter held a meeting at the Experience Music Project Museum.
• Arizona Chapter held a general meeting at Luke Air Force Base (with tours of the F-16s) to discuss economic development and its impact on the base.
• Upper South Carolina Chapter held a plant tour of the new BMW plant-a very popular event.

For more information and for additional resources, please contact William Githens at bgithens@rmahq.org or 215-446-4124 or the Regional Manager in your area.