In an ever changing world, Civitan International is working hard to ensure that our clubs are adapting and embracing change well. Junior Civitan clubs have been champions of change by being leaders in important areas of running a club such as technology, fundraising, club building, recruitment, and new ideas. As Civitan’s longest standing program, Junior Civitans have some helpful tips to share with you on what you can implement into your clubs to ensure that you are adapting and embracing modern changes.

Communicate:
Communicating within your club can be difficult, especially when your club does not meet regularly and your members have busy schedules. Who knows more about busy schedules, though, than our Junior Civitans. Here are a few tricks they use to make communicating within their clubs easier.

1.) Remind: “Remind is an easy tool to use to stay in contact with members of your club. This app allows for an administrator to send a mass text message or email to an entire group with the click of one button. Clubs use Remind to notify members of meeting times, projects coming up, or any last minute changes. As a parent, I use Remind with my kids’ teachers to always stay in the loop of what is going on. ” -Amy Roberts, Fundraising and Marketing Specialist

To learn more about Remind, click here.

2.) GroupMe: “It can be hard to find ways that work for everyone when it comes to communication, with people having different cell phone carriers, brands of technology, etc. Group me allows everyone to share a group chat on the same platform and is an easy way to plan meetings or events and share ideas. My district uses group me whenever there is a need for everyone to talk to each other or important messages need to be shared.” -Rachel Stripp, Junior Civitan International Director

To get started using GroupMe, click here.

Polling:
As an officer in a club, it can sometimes be hard to understand what your membership is thinking. Junior Civitans struggle with this too and want to help Civitan clubs as much as possible with this task. Here are a few tricks that our Junior Civitan clubs use for polling.

1. Sign-Up Genius: “Sign-Up Genius is an easy tool you can use to allow members to sign up for specific time slots. This can come in handy when scheduling shifts to work an event, one on one meeting times, and countless other things. As a college student, I use Sign-Up Genius everyday for different student organizations I am a part of.” -Cambron Bice, Civitan International Intern

To learn more about Sign-Up Genius, click here.

File Sharing:
Having an officer team comprised of multiple people can make sharing documents and information difficult. It is best to always have open communication about anything going on and sharing any important documents with all officers. Junior Civitans have a few helpful resources to make this an easy task.

1. Google Drive: Google drive is a super fast and easy way to share documents and pictures with others. My schools have always used google drive whenever we are doing assignments or to get notes from lessons. It works really well whenever I need to share a meeting agenda or have a document I want multiple people to be contributing to at the same time! -Rachel Stripp, Civitan International Director

To learn more about Google Drive, click here.

2. Shared Files: “At Civitan International, we use shared files for documents, pictures, and other items that different employees might need. This has been extremely beneficial in allowing collaboration amongst different employees and departments without the hecticness of asking for something every time. I, and every other Civitan employee, have everything we need at our fingertips” -Emily Kicker, Membership Specialist Jr. Civitan

To learn about shared files, click here.

Meeting Alternatives:
Busy schedules and far distances make it difficult for every member to attend every meeting. Here are some tips from Junior Civitans on ways to make meeting easier without having to be in person.

1. Zoom Calls: I’m involved in many different organizations and one thing that has helped us establish effective meetings has been holding zoom calls. My district board has found zoom calls are a great way to meet considering we would have to travel great distances to meet in person. With the many features of zoom calls, like the ability to screen share
PowerPoint presentations, Zoom becomes a great alternative to in-person meetings. – Ethan Jeffus

To learn more about Zoom Calls, click here.