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Are you a frustrated volunteer board member who dreads going to another ineffective meeting? Do you spend more time complaining about volunteer board meetings then the actual time you spend in the meetings?

3 Reasons Why You Need To Improve

In this episode you’ll find out why it’s so important for your volunteer board to have highly effective meetings. Here’s a few highlights:

• Bad meetings are causing our best volunteer board members to quit
• Your clients will suffer if you don’t get enough accomplished in your volunteer board meetings
• If your organization is known for having dysfunctional board meetings then it will be very difficult to recruit new board members

Take Action!

Overall, when your volunteer board builds effective meetings, then you can have more fun and serve yourselves, your clients and your community at the highest possible level! Listen onApple Podcasts​​​​Follow us onSoundCloudFollow us onStitcher RadioListen onSpotifyFollow us onGoogle PlayFollow us onYouTube CLICK ABOVE TO LISTEN ON YOUR FAVOURITE PODCAST APP! SHOW HIGHLIGHTS (click the highlight to skip to your favourite part!) (:00) Show Opening (:27) Skip intro Podcast content starts here! (1:00) Gord’s Board Meeting Epiphany  What happened after Gord confronted a volunteer board chair for being late (2:20) Why we’re holding back It’s time to stop the passive aggressive behaviour (2:42) Why Volunteer Boards need effective meetings Reason 1: Bad meetings lose great volunteers (3:14) Why Volunteer Boards need effective meetings Reason 2: Bad meetings cause suffering for clients and community (3:54) Why Volunteer Boards need effective meetings Reason 3: Great meetings make volunteer recruiting easier (4:22) Stop complaining! Fix the board meetings so you’ll spend less time complaining (4:32) Take Action! 1. Visit Meeting Leadership Inc. Resources https://meetingleadershipinc.com/resources to get free resources. 2. Visit Meeting Leadership Academy https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy (5:08)  Thanks for listening! (5:21) Podcast Outro 

Full Transcript – click here to read

FULL TRANSCRIPT 00:00 – Show Opening Are you a professional who wants to become a more effective leader? Then get ready for daily tips from the coach, with the experience and inspiration to help you succeed in any leadership situation. You’re listening to the Meeting Leadership Podcast with Gordon Sheppard. 00:27 – Start Here – Podcast content starts here! Gordon Sheppard Speaking Welcome to another episode of the Meeting Leadership podcast. And if you do anything with leadership and volunteering, then today’s episode is going to be highly valuable for you, because today, we’re going to talk about why volunteer boards need highly effective meetings. Now, I could talk a little bit about my own volunteer experience, which I come by pretty honestly. I’ve actually been a board chair and served on boards, I’ve raised money on the volunteer side, but my main insight for today comes from the work that I do as a consultant with nonprofit boards. 01:00 – Gord’s Board Meeting Epiphany – What happened after Gord confronted a volunteer board chair for being late  Now, here’s the story. One time I was brought in to facilitate a strategic planning session with a nonprofit board. We were sitting there about eight of us for probably 15, 20 minutes past when we were supposed to start, and guess who was late? It was the board chair. And then this nice fellow, he came in 20 minutes late and he sat down, he started talking about something that nobody really cared about because that’s not what we were there to talk about that day. Now, good consultant kind of sits there quietly and says, “Okay, is it time to move on?” And you collect your money and you move forward, but something happened for me that day that was an absolute game changer. I actually found myself instinctively standing up, looking at this nice man and saying, “Hey, you’re the board chair, you’re late, and now you’ve come in here and you’re talking about something that’s not relevant to the work that we’re doing here today. What do you want to do about it?” Now, I figured, at that point, I might as well just get my briefcase and walk out the door because I get fired, but that is not what happened. Here’s what did happen. The fellow to his right, the person that they had brought on as a volunteer to manage the money, he did this, he went, “Oh, thank goodness somebody said something.” And that is why I tell the story. 02:20 – Why we’re holding back – It’s time to stop the passive aggressive behaviour I think so many of us are in volunteer board meetings, and when the behavior is off the rails or we’re not getting very much done, that’s the kind of thing that we’re thinking. We know what to do, but somehow we’re holding back. It’s like almost a passive aggressive behavior. We’re holding back, we’re not saying what really needs to be done, and we’re allowing these meetings to be lousy. 02:42 – Why Volunteer Boards need effective meetings – Reason 1: Bad meetings lose great volunteers So why do volunteer boards need highly effective meetings? Let me tell you the first reason. We are losing our best volunteers because they don’t want to waste time in bad meetings. I know a story about an HR professional who retired. They had some time, they showed up to a volunteer board meeting, they were really excited, went to one meeting, it was dysfunctional, and then they left. That board lost a huge opportunity when that person went out the door because they weren’t going to have those human resource skills brought into the situation. 03:14 – Why Volunteer Boards need effective meetings – Reason 2: Bad meetings cause suffering for clients and community Another reason is that the end user of your volunteer organization will suffer if the board meetings are ineffective. There’s just too much to deal with, and generally, nonprofit boards are meeting probably about eight times a year for a couple hours at a time. There’s a few people that are doing heavy lifting, but there’s so much that needs to be done in those board meetings. If they’re not running well, the end user is just… it’s a disaster. I can tell you, there was a social service organization where the board was dysfunctional and the end users were vulnerable people on the streets, and they were going to be underserved because that board couldn’t get it together. 03:54 – Why Volunteer Boards need effective meetings – Reason 3: Great meetings make volunteer recruiting easier The third reason that you want to really create highly effective meetings for your volunteer boards is for making recruiting way easier. The word will get out. If your meetings are fun, they’re purposeful, people are feeling energized by them, you will get what’s called oversubscribed. There’ll be more people wanting to clamor to get on your board than you can even imagine. So that’s why it’s really worth investing in making those meetings highly effective.  04:22 – Stop complaining! – Fix the board meetings so you’ll spend less time complaining And honestly, if you’re spending more time complaining about volunteer meetings than the actual amount of time that you’re spending in those meetings, there is a problem. 04:32 – Take Action! – 1. Visit Meeting Leadership Inc. Resources https://meetingleadershipinc.com/resources to get free resources. 2. Visit Meeting Leadership Academy https://meetingleadershipinc.com/academy Here’s a couple of suggestions that will help you to take action now. One, visit meetingleadershipinc.com and check out the resources section. Now, in there, you’re going to find great blog articles and free videos that will help you to actually put specific concepts into action right away to improve your board meetings. And the second way that you can take action is to check out the sponsor of today’s show, and that is Meeting Leadership Academy. Visit meetingleadershipinc.com/academy to learn about the live training and online training options that will help you move your board meetings to the next level. 05:08 – Thanks for listening! As always, thanks so much for listening, especially if you’re a volunteer who’s upping their leadership game, because I know how precious your time is, and we’ll see you tomorrow on another episode of the Meeting Leadership podcast. 05:21 – Podcast Outro Thanks for listening to the Meeting Leadership podcast. Be sure to subscribe for more strategies to help you become an outstanding leader. And don’t forget to rate and review so we can bring you fresh content every day. We’ll see you tomorrow, right here on the Meeting Leadership podcast. LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE

• Meeting Leadership Inc. Resources https://meetingleadershipinc.com/resources/
• Meeting Leadership Academy – http://meetingleadership.com/academy

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CONNECT WITH GORD • LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/in/gordonsheppard • twitter – @gordonsheppard1

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