Q: My Forum has been together for almost 15 years. We love spending time together, but our meetings don’t give us the impact they used to. How do we keep things fresh and interesting in our monthly meetings?
– Jose T.
A: Congratulations on being together so long! That’s quite an accomplishment and something to be very proud of.
I’ve been in my Forum for over 15 years myself, and the challenge of staying away from stagnation is real! We’ve incorporated some Forum 2.0® alternative presentation formats into our monthly meetings that have spiced things up. Here are some additional ways we’ve kept things fresh, impactful, and valuable:
- Dedicate time to reviewing our Parking Lot so we can truly see what we should be talking about
- Bring in an External Expert to educate us on topics of mutual interest to all members
- Align everyone with an Annual Theme, which gives us new goals and challenges
- Use Start/Stop/Continue so we can vocalize how we can help each other get more value from our meetings
We also plan our Annual Retreat to be a rejuvenating experience for all of us, as individuals and a group. Wherever we travel to—even if some of us have been in that city or country before—we visit other EO businesses and find at least one or two activities we’ve never done before. Having a couple of days of brand-new experiences together revitalizes us and gives us great energy, which we bring to all of our monthly meetings.
–Deb