Why organising your membership meeting is a marathon

Whether you’re planning a corporate membership meeting, a faith-based meeting, or a meeting for your sporting organisation, how to run / organise a meeting requires months of preparation and planning – just like you would for a marathon.

Here are the steps you should consider in your preparations:

1. Think about the audience: Who will attend your membership meeting? Where are they located? How can you increase accessibility for remote participants?
   
2. Get your kit ready: There are a variety of technologies that can augment the hybrid or virtual meeting experience. Would you benefit from a virtual microphone at your hybrid meeting? What about a secure digital voting system? Explore what elements you should implement at your event.
3. Check the rules: What are the regulations and compliance requirements in your industry/area? Ensure you’re up to date on the latest and that your event meets all necessary policies.
4. Get backup plans in place: When National Grid made the move to a hybrid AGM, they ensured every base was covered. We asked Nick Ivory, Assistant Company Secretary at National Grid about how his team prepared organise the AGM:

“There was a huge amount of due diligence completed by our IT and security teams together with you [Lumi] and our registrar,” Mr. Ivory told us. “As always, we do a lot of contingency planning and we expanded this to scenarios or implications around holding a hybrid meeting. We prepped for all contingencies... We rehearsed, and rehearsed, and rehearsed again – and the pre-AGM technical rehearsal with key internal stakeholders was vital in giving our Chair, Group General Council & Company Secretary and our Board comfort in the technology so they could relax and focus on delivering a successful meeting.”

5. Learn for next year: Treat your meeting as a learning experience: after the event, discuss the results with your team and have an open dialogue about how you might be able to improve the experience for next year.
   

How to run / organise a meeting depends on having a good grounding in place: quality assurance, security, and risk mitigation – especially when you plan to introduce new technologies into your meeting format. To make sure your next meeting runs without a hitch, get in touch.