Shepherd University | Virtual Operations, Activities, and Programs

VIRTUAL ACTIVITIES

There are a lot of free tools and resources available to help keep your groups connected and functioning. If you need help, do not hestitate to reach out to the Student Activities and Leadership staff at rmeads@shepherd.edu.

Are you a leader of a student organization on campus? Check out these tips for connecting virtually with your organization:

Connect Virtually: Group Operations

Zoom is a great way to “meet up” with your friends, classmates, and student organization members. Check out these tips for utilizing Zoom.

Utilize Your Group’s RamPulse Page

For a brief overview of the organization tools you can manage and use, click here.
Did you know you can message your group through RamPulse? Click here to find out more!
Do you, or your members, not have access to certain tools needed? Not receiving messages from your group’s RamPulse? You or your primary contact may need to help. Here’s a tutorial of how to update your organization’s roster, officer positions, and group messaging.
The Documents tool allows you to create a shared storage space for important organizational files. You can share these files publicly or only with certain members or Position holders within your organization. You must be either the Primary Contact of your organization or an officer with full access to Documents to upload files to your organization. For a Documents Overview, click here.
Does your group need to run virtual elections? RamPulse can help! You can utilize your group’s page to collect nominations via Forms, create ballots, and finally hold the election.
Use RamPulse to manage and centralize your group’s service hours! You can track your service hours and approve them (if applicable).

Tips for Running Virtual Meetings

Test out your technology before the start of the meeting. Work with a friend to test out your meeting platform to make sure everything works.
Opt for video calling. While not everyone loves the idea of video calls, they increase connection and community. When possible, choose video calling for a more personal approach to staying connected. Note that in cases where reception is bad, you may have to switch off video calling.
Start each meeting with an icebreaker where everyone gets to share. If there are a lot of participants, consider using the chat features for people to respond and share.
Stick to set times. Set standard weekly times meetings should take place for consistency. We recommend, keeping with the regular times you had prior to going remote.
Set clear agendas, outcomes, and action items. We recommend using Google docs as a way of creating living agendas where people can see updates in real time and items as the meeting goes along. At the end of every meeting, be sure to articulate clear action items and next steps.
Create new roles and rotate responsibilities. Think about daily and weekly tasks such as taking meeting minutes and rotate these amongst members to stay engaged. Additionally, consider forming new and creative subcommittees that can work on projects in more intimate chat groups.
Get buy-in. Make sure to create space for allowing others to provide thoughts and input. It’s important to ask things like “what do people think of this?” or “does anyone have anything to add?” Be okay with some silence on the other end as some people may need additional time to think.
Meet one-on-one. If you are in a leadership role within your organization, consider scheduling one on one check-ins with other Executive Board leaders and members. This is a great way to maintain connection and be able to accommodate the different needs of your group.
Centralize organization documents. Consider utilizing your group’s RamPulse page under Documents to share information with your organization in a timely, adjustable fashion.

Tips for Organizing

Make sure that your group’s roster on RamPulse is up to date (remove all former or graduated members and make sure that you have managed the roster to give all officers appropriate titles and permissions to add documents, manage files, etc.)
Centralize organization documents. All of your groups’s documents, minutes, bylaws, etc. can be saved to folders on your group’s RamPulse page and easily accessed by all your group members on your roster or restricted to view by only select individuals on your roster.
Consider a communication channel and set expectations. Many groups utilize a centralized platform or app as directed by their national organizations. This can help keep everyone up-to-date and help avoid the confusing text message chain. However, also remember that the RamPulse messaging feature may send messages out to your organization as well.

Tips for Engaging Members

While ensuring you continue to meet the mission and purpose of your organization is important, it’s also important to recognize that much of what your organization does is social, connecting students to one another. Even in a virtual environment, there are lots of ways to help people connect informally and socially. Here are some ideas:
- Host a daily check-in or kick-off for members. This may be focused on organization-related items, or an opportunity to just wish everyone a great day!
- Host virtual office hours outside of meetings for more personal connections and conversations.
- Create a regular newsletter or posts on the news features section of your RamPulse page. There are a number of great resources such as Constant Contact and MailChimp that allow you to create free electronic newsletters. This can be a great way to keep members up-to-date with the activities of the organization. Consider adding trivia questions or fun challenges to make the newsletter more interactive.

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Virtual Operations, Activities, and Programs