Length of Chapter Meeting
 

Hi all.

I'd like to get your opinion...

What do you think is the max time chapter should be? A lot of us think it should be an hour max, but some others think it's okay if it's 1.5/2 hours, like when we have a programming chapter.

What do you think?
Thanks!

Thanks for your input!

What about in the case of programming...so when you have guest speakers? It should still be no more than an hour?

I agree with KSUViolet-no longer than 1 hour unless special circumstances.

Guest speakers-it would be great to limit it to 1 hour-not only for the speakers benefit, but also for the chapters. Of course-if you had a Red Cross volunteer coming in to give CPR lessons, that might be longer, but again, that would be a special circumstance.

For chapter meetings, we try to make them last no more than 2 hours, since the building we're in closes at night. Chapter choir is the same.

If we had someone coming in, we would keep it to about the same length unless the person was an Province/Regional Officer or from NH. It would be longer then, probably.

Thank you for all the replies. I'll mention that this is also for a Panhellenic sorority. A lot of other Panhellenic chapters on our campus vary from 30min to 1.5 hours.... but the associate chapters (music, christian, business, service) have told me their meetings usually last 2-3 hours!

I think if you are having a business meeting, you should limit to one hour, even if you are doing programming. Have a paper meeting if you have a speaker so you don't prolong the meeting. If you want to stay later to do a sisterhood event during meeting time, you could go over the 1 hour time, but sisters should be allowed to leave if they want to. This should especially be adhered to if your chapter is having problems with attendance at chapter meetings.

I always tell my groups to have a 45 minute goal, and one hour limit for general business meetings. Special circumstances aside, reports and discussion should not last longer than that, and if they do you members will certainly start to turn on you, haha. If meetings going significantly over an hour I would recommend brushing up on parliamentary procedure and making sure you're using your committee system to its full potential.

I'm working with a new chapter. The first year, they really had a hard time keeping meetings under 2 hours, even with a resident sorority consultant. But, they were combining new member education with regular business the first semester. This year they have really tried to keep it to an hour, and that makes everyone happy. There are still things I think they could cut down on...like not taking verbal roll and just having the recording secretary eyeball and mark attendance. They have been making announcements more effectively via e-mail/electronic posting, too.

2-3 hours, noooooo way....I wouldn't worry about keeping up with the Joneses in that dept.!

How often do your chapters meet? (For anyone who has posted)

My APO chapter met roughly monthly for anywhere from one hour to two, but we saw each other often in between for pledge meetings, eboard meetings, etc.

My NPHC alumni chapter often met for two hours, plus an hour repast. A past president changed it so that the meetings were exactly an hour. The problem is that they became cold and clinical and alienating of the older men for whom this was their only Alpha outlet every month.

NPC chapters meet weekly.

All of them? Any reason why?

Yeah, all of them meet weekly. It's part of the experience. Since meetings don't include alumnae members, meetings aren't spread out to accommodate their busy schedules.

All of the non-NPHC orgs at my school meet weekly as well. I can't speak for the NPHC orgs since they don't talk about when/where they meet.

For SigEp, our meetings are usually about an hour. We also try to keep them an hour for presentations as well. We will perform a paper-only meeting if there is an event after the meeting as well.

When I first joined, though, I experienced normal meetings that went 3 hours long. Thank goodness we're long past that point!!!!