Intentional Volunteer Meetings

My volunteers always love it when I make them some homemade cookies or brownies, too. If you don’t have the budget to bring in something nicer, make them a home-cooked meal like chili or tacos. They will appreciate the extra effort, and will love the fact that it’s not pizza again.

Step 6: Have Fun!

Meetings can be boring at times. Always have an element of fun in every meeting to make up for the “boring” parts. I have started playing a team building game at the beginning of every meeting. I try to choose games that get everyone involved, encourage interaction and require teamwork. It also helps to have some kind of prize(s) for winning. Sometimes I do a drawing for a gift card, or give out candy bars to the winning team. I try to keep the game at 10 minutes or less so no one feels like I’m wasting their time. If you don’t feel like playing a game, you can always just do a drawing for gift cards or other prizes. Make sure you only give stuff away to the leaders who attend the meeting. For more ideas on ways to appreciate your volunteers, check out these posts: 8 Easy Ways to Appreciate Your Volunteers and 6 Ways to Appreciate Your Volunteers for Free.

Step 7: Train

You can choose to do training during meetings once a quarter, or incorporate some training into each month. Recently, I have decided to incorporate some training every month, and focus on a different topic each month. I have all of my early childhood, elementary and kids check-in volunteers attend the monthly meetings. Sometimes our training topics are universal, and we keep the whole team together, but some months we choose to break up into groups to train more specifically in each area. This is why training is always the last part of the meeting. If you decide to do training monthly, keep it to no more than 30 minutes. Chances are you have at list of volunteer training topics as long as the dictionary, so stick to one topic each month, and cover it thoroughly. Your leaders aren’t going to be able to retain the information if you try to cover everything all at once. At the end of your training always open up the floor for additional questions.

Step 8: Pray

You can never pray too much for your volunteer team. Pray over them before meetings, during meetings, in the middle of the week, whenever one of them crosses your mind. Let them know you are praying for them and their families. Lastly, pray for God to bring the right volunteers onto your team.

How do you make the most of your volunteer meetings? What are you doing to make your volunteers feel like a team?

This article originally appeared here.