Turn Your Meeting Archives Into A Robust Association Chapter Resource
Updated: Apr. 26, 2023 | Categories: Member Communications, Meetings/Events, Website, Low Engagement
Someone takes notes at your monthly association chapter meeting. Maybe someone else creates PowerPoint presentations and yet another person takes pictures. What do you do with all those great resources after the event ends?
If you’re like many association chapters, it goes on your association chapter website, where it sits until someone – member, board member, sponsor, guest, etc. – has a random thought or question, and they go looking for it, in their inbox or on your association chapter website. Sometimes they find it, and other times it takes too long so they give up their search. And sometimes they don’t even bother looking because they have no idea where to start.
With a few tweaks, it can be easy to give your association chapter meeting resources a purpose, while making them more relevant, useful and easy-to-find. Turn those association chapter meeting archives into a robust, easily accessible online resource and provide a range of benefits to your chapter and all those you interact with.
3 ways association chapter meeting resources can be an asset for members
- Position your website as the place to go for information. Create an event “hub” on your association chapter website and you’ll improve the satisfaction of all you engage with. Not only will you make it easier for people to find what they need, but you’ll decrease the number of emails you send and the complexity of the ones that do go out, by allowing you to just include links to the materials in emails instead of attachments. And people will know where to go when they want to find the content again, once you include the locations in your association chapter newsletters and mention it in your meetings. Everyone will see that your association chapter website is the first place they should go for information, and, once you get them on your association chapter website, they’ll stay longer, reading your blog, exploring your job forum, registering for future events, etc.
- Improve the experience of users on your website. Highlight information on your website that shows your association chapter as strong, relevant, and present. There’s nothing worse than coming to an association chapter website looking, for example, for event information – recent or upcoming – and all a person can find are significantly out-of-date events. That’s a terrible user experience and one that can make a person wonder if an organization really is active. Include current links to recent events summaries and highlights on your home page – some association management systems, like StarChapter, can auto archive your events, so visitors only see recent and future events, eliminating the need for them to weed through months (or years) of out-of-date chapter information.
- Make members more comfortable attending events in person. Whether your members have become comfortable attending virtual events; they’re hesitant about returning after the pandemic; and/or they’re more introverted individuals not comfortable attending events in person, chapter photos can help change perspectives. Posting pictures shows who attends your association chapter events and what the venue looks like and can show that your events can be comfortable spaces for everyone.
Buffalo Niagara Sales & Marketing Executives Photo Gallery
Recently, we spoke to Jeanne Hellert, Executive Director, Buffalo Niagara Sales & Marketing Executives (BNSME) about the importance of their association chapter photo gallery.
“Maintaining the photo gallery has always been a priority for our chapter even before digital cameras made it easy to get them online. We would take photos, print them and scan them in.”
“It is important to us to show our community our activity,” she explained. “Even during the height of the pandemic, we would take screen shots of our virtual sessions to add to the photo gallery. We want to give people the ability to see the diversity and engagement we are happy to have in our organization.”
“People like to see themselves in the photographs,” she said, “especially when it is from significant events like our annual awards ceremony. They are big moments that we are happy to capture. Some of our members have even gotten them printed through our photography sponsor.
“We are fortunate to have an in-kind sponsorship that provides their professional photography services.” This person attends events, takes photos, and uploads them to Dropbox for BNSME to download the ones they want to use. “Then StarChapter makes it very easy to upload and organize them by event.
“We will also utilize the photos to create a video collage to then promote a future year’s event like the awards ceremony and our golf outing. Our golf outing is always filled with foursome photos, capturing fun moments and the overall comradery.”
Make the most of your meeting resources
Like BNSME, it can be easy to use your meeting resources to better engage your association chapter members, member guests, sponsors and more. By letting them easily see – in slides, up-to-date, relevant content, and photographs – what your chapter is all about, you’ll show them that your chapter, your website and your events, are where they need to be.
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