Organising meetings
Meetings need not be boring! This section can help you to organise meetings that involve your members, generate new ideas and give everyone a chance to contribute to the running of your group.
If you are organising a public meeting or conference, you may also find the information in our Planning and organising events section useful.
Click on the Equipment tab at the top of this page to see our range of low-cost equipment for hire, to help make your meetings accessible and interesting. The Links tab has details of other organisations with useful information, such as venues for hire in Brighton and Hove.
AGM Checklist
Organising your Annual General Meeting
Chairing a meeting
This information sheet looks at what chairing a meeting involves, and how to do it. There are some useful tips and advice to help improve and develop your chairing skills.
Health and safety for community groups
An introduction to health and safety for community groups run by volunteers.
How to improve your chairing skills
The Resource Centre held two workshops on chairing meetings in March 2016. These were attended by twelve people from nine different Brighton & Hove City Council Tenant and Resident Associations.
Hybrid meetings (in person and online)
Information for groups who want to use the Resource Centre’s Meeting Owl set to run a hybrid online/in-person meeting.
Involving people in your group
How do you get lots of people along to your meetings and events? How do you make sure that more than a handful of you are doing the bulk of the work?
Organising a public meeting
Holding a public meeting can be a really good way of building a campaign or getting more people involved in your group.
Running a crèche
Information for community groups about providing childcare at a one-off community event.
Taking Minutes
Quick and easy guide to taking minutes
The Agenda
Quick and easy guide to preparing an agenda
The Secretary's role
A quick overview of the main roles of officers, and a more detailed explanation of the role of the Secretary.
Video and telephone meeting tools
How to have a meeting when you can’t all be together
The Resource Centre’s community print room has equipment you can use to print the agenda, minutes and publicity materials for your meeting. If you need to print a number of documents for your meeting, you may find our section on printing information packs useful.
Our section on Publicity and Communication has more information on making sure people know about your meetings and events.
These books are available at the Resource Centre, to borrow or to use in the Centre.
- A Chair's First 100 Days
- Communication skills (Booklet 2 of 5 of "From Conflict to Cooperation" series)
- Community Matters: Reference Manual for Community Organisations Advisers
- Conflict - where it comes from & how to deal with it (Booklet 1 of 5 of "From Conflict to Cooperation" series)
- Involving young people: guide to board development
- Meetings and decision-making (Booklet 3 of 5 of the "From Conflict to Cooperation" Series)
- Minute taking
- Organise!
- Organising things - a guide to successful political action
- Point of order - committees and meetings - how they work
- Public speaking and presentations - a guide for small voluntary organisations
- Quick Guides: Meetings
- Quick Guides: Presentations
- The Minute-Taker's Handbook
Equipment available from the Resource Centre
- A-board
- Data projector
- Free-standing A2 and A3 signs
- Induction loop
- Infra-red hearing system
- PC laptop
- Portable induction loop
- Projection screens
- Ramps
- Roller banner stand
- Stand for projectors
Equipment available from other suppliers
The services listed below are not provided by the Resource Centre. These are websites and services we feel are particularly useful for small groups in Brighton & Hove, and which are not easy to find by searching the internet.
Notes:
Community Base provides office space for local voluntary sector groups. To join the waiting list for office space, email centremanager@communitybase.org
They also provide the following services for all local groups: