Trying to schedule a meeting date/time that works for everyone is a never-ending battle and time suck. The worst way to schedule meetings is to carve out time for it at the end of each Forum meeting. If you try this strategy, not only will you lose a bunch of valuable meeting time, but you’ll also lose the focus of the group. Everyone will need to turn on their devices to look at their calendars, and once the devices are turned on, their attention will get pulled in multiple directions as notifications pop up on their screen.
To counter the time suck of scheduling within meetings, the best alternative is to put a placeholder calendar invite on everyone’s calendar for the next 12 months. By doing so, people will start to plan around the Forum dates.
In terms of picking a repeating date, it’s good to think about the calendar year and what day/time works best for the group. Typically, many holidays happen within the first and last weeks of the month. So it’s better to focus on the second and third weeks of the month. Within those weeks, typically Mondays and Fridays aren’t good. So really, Forums should consider holding their Forum meeting on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday of the second or third week.
If someone cannot make an upcoming Forum date, it is that person’s responsibility to try and find an alternative date for the group.
Doodle.com is a wonderful tool to ease the pain of finding a new date that works for everyone. It’s worth using if you haven’t used it before.
If the group isn’t able to find an alternative date to the original Forum date for the month, then the person with the conflict takes a miss for the month and the group meets at the originally set time.