Service Unit Meetings

A well run service unit meeting should be an hour. You can have optional instruction or share time after you have concluded the important part of the meeting. Leaders can get valuable info on events at SU meetings and even find out about events not being broadcast through council website. You can be a part of planning the SU events and state your opinion. If you do not attend and do not help then you can not complain about how events are planned or run.

I confess, yes I am a CTO (service unit manager) or whatever the current title is for it. I left a very large and active SU that I was having issues with (the treasurer and I were like oil and water), to go to one 20 minutes further away. The new one was small and needed some new life. In came my troop of 40+ girls and it got that new life. I became CTO the next year and have been for 3 now. I have had 2-3 troops follow me because they were also not happy with their current SU. One of the followers is coming from the next county. If you are unhappy in your service unit or can not make the day/time they meet, please talk to your membership staffer about switching SU. There should be no reason why you can not if you are willing to drive to the other meeting. I am sure there are councils that do not allow it.

I am surprised sometimes that I hear someone say their SU meeting is 2 - 2.5 hours. If that is the case I can see why some people don't come. You should be able to complete all important business in an hour or less. The CTO should have an agenda to keep things on track.

I also do a newsletter for the back side of the agenda (both examples will be in the files section). It includes fun things as well as suggestions. Minutes from meeting are put on the SU facebook group but you can only get a copy of the newsletter and agenda if you attend SU meeting.

When the business portion is complete then all those who need to run (and staffer if one attends) can go and those who want to stay for a mini-training or share time can stay. This is working great for our SU and attendance is better.