How to keep your meetings relevant and interesting?
We are often asked to provide advice about how organisers can encourage attendance at meetings.
The first thing to say is that the key aim of any Pubwatch should be to prevent crime and disorder in members venues. So, the identification of crime trends and problem individuals should remain the priority topic on your agenda.
However, people will only commit to giving up their valuable time if they feel that the meetings are relevant and benefit their businesses. This is their forum so you should always allocate time on the agenda to engage members to discuss:
- potential community campaigns or promotions the forum could support – for example police led designated driver programs
- how the forum can get involved in developing their own local initiatives to create safer communities
- products that could benefit members and their businesses – for example purchase, location and shared access to defibrillators or bleed control kits
Listening and encouraging open communication during meetings can help identify members’ needs. Identifying these gaps can assist in planning future campaigns and initiatives or training inputs by guest speakers.
Sourcing assistance or input from local organisations, such as BID’s, Community Safety Partnerships, specialists from Responsible Authorities (Police, Council, Fire, EHO) who may see a direct benefit to promoting their own safety agenda. Offering online capability for presenters, may make it easier to schedule a speaker.
Below are some examples of the type of topics which might benefit from sourcing an outside speaker. The list is not exhaustive and you might find further inspiration from looking at the policy documents, films and training materials available on the National Pubwatch website.
- Alcohol related topics: drunkenness, drink spiking, underage sales, checking ID, dealing with difficult or violent customers
- Crime in venues: mobile phone thefts, burglary. sexual assault prevention
- Critical Incidents: Terrorism, bomb hoax, emergency evacuation and fire safety
- Drug related topics: Drug identification, drug and alcohol support programs and how licensed venues can help promote them, confiscation and storage of drugs
- Major events in your area: impacts of the event on trade and transport, working together with other licensed venues to mitigate problems
How topics are presented will be a matter of discussion between the organiser and speaker, but members might benefit if you create a real learning experience. For example, by sharing a Case Study and encouraging members to contribute their experiences of similar incidents.
You might also be interested in viewing our FAQ film ‘How can our pubwatch encourage active membership of the scheme?’ which has a similar theme.
