Why Hall Meetings are Important

Hall meetings can be helpful, and they can also be dreadful. There will be residents who skip out on attending them, and there will be residents who embrace attending them. There will be residents that are talkative during them, and there will be residents who ignore you. Either way, these are incredibly important. Here's why:

- A place where you can get a message across to your entire hall

- A place where you can talk about issues involving the building

- A place where you can check in with residents you haven't seen in a while

- A setting in which the entire community is together in one space, which can be rare depending on your residents.

Despite these meetings being incredibly important, often times residents will skip out on them, or not know about them, or forget about them. So, how do you plan a successful hall meeting that residents actually attend? What is the repercussion for when a resident doesn't attend?

For my residents, I have a rule of three. First, send out an email about the hall meeting a few days in advance. Second, post about it in your hall page closer to the date (or even day of). Third, print out hall meeting flyers and tape them to every single door in your building. This usually gets their attention, and I also bring it up via word of mouth.

Set the president that these are MANDATORY hall meetings. Meaning, you have to attend, no ifs ands or buts. (I accept excused absences in the case of work and if they aren't in the state. But, they should be emailing me before hand about this, so I know).

When a resident doesn't attend, there has to be a repercussion. Usually, I have meetings with all the residents who don't attend, and I let them know that it's not okay that they missed the meeting, and that I expect them at every meeting going forward. We have a talk about what it means to be in a community, and how attending meetings is a part of their living agreement. Non-negotiable.

If certain residents continue to miss the meetings, they talk to my supervisor next about why it's important to attend these meetings, and why it's not okay that they don't. If you don't have this in place already, talk to your supervisor! Let them know that you want their support on this. Residents are more apt to attend a hall meeting if your supervisor has met with them.

So now you have residents coming to your events. So how can you make your hall meetings worth while? Of course, you should have an agenda about what needs to be addressed, but hall meetings should be engaging. They should be worthwhile to the resident (besides the offering of important information). So, here are some ways you can plan your hall meeting that engage residents.

Start with the most pressing issues first. Last night, I had a big hall meeting about how our kitchen has been treated thus far, and I had to shut it down due to the inappropriate behavior surrounding the kitchen (theft, uncleanliness, etc.). I started with that first, because it's good to get the heavy stuff out of the way first.

Flow into any stuff that residents need to know that is going on with the school. For example, class registration is happening at our school, so last night we talked about what that looked like, and how residents should be signing up for classes.

Talk about your events, or campus-wide events next. Inform them about what is happening inside the hall, and what programs they can attend during the upcoming weeks.

Finish with something fun. Last night, I had the residents write on a map where they are from. I call these mini-community builders that engage the residents and forces full attendance, so that residents aren't missing out. My residents loved this, and it helped build connections that weren't there previously.

After a fun community building activity, I tell residents that I'll be in the common room to answer any questions they have, or if they want to talk to me in a one-on-one setting. A lot of residents take advantage of this. because they may not otherwise see me to ask me questions. I also make sure I have plenty of time to hang around after the meeting for this purpose.

Having these agendas make the hall meetings easier to run, and it looks more professional. And ending on something more fun and lighthearted helps build that community between all the residents in a space that they all have to be in. It's a great way to target all residents at once. And, if you make them fun, more residents will want to attend them.