While having a repetitive monthly accountability meeting is a major benefit of Forum, it is also nice to spice the monthly meetings up every so often. Here are three creative ways you can spice up your next Forum meeting.
1) Unique Location – After getting a tour of a t-shirt factory by the CEO, we set up eight chairs in a circle right in the middle of the factory floor to host our Forum meeting. It was after-hours, so all the employees were gone, and it was just us in a massive warehouse with big machines. Considering most of our businesses were service-related, the atmosphere and tour created a unique experience for the group.Think about changing up the location of your meeting by hosting it in unique locations. Some ideas might include in a park, at someone’s home, rotating offices, a wine cellar, a bank vault, or maybe even a haunted house.
2) Guest Speaker – As a group, we thought the idea of becoming “thought leaders” in our individual industries would benefit us. To move this idea forward, we brought in an expert on this topic who spoke to the group for an hour. We all walked away with several action items related to “thought leadership” that we’d never thought about before.Many consultants are excited about the idea of working with small groups like yours as a way to pitch their services. Many will even do the talk for free in hopes of upselling larger contracts to members of the group.
3) AM vs. PM – Our normal meeting time is in the evening with dinner afterward, but on one particular month, the only time we were all free was in the morning before work. Having never tried an AM meeting, we decided to give it a go. Even though we didn’t get to experience the bonding of a traditional post-Forum dinner, the energy from the group in the morning was higher because we weren’t drained by the workday. We were all more present and focused. Be willing to experiment with your forum’s start time and see what kind of impact it has on the group.