It’s summer! Whoohoo!

Summer’s fun time, no-homework time, non-stop-movie-marathon time–I get it. I was there. I’m still there. But you know what summer time is for club officers and advisors? A good time to plan.

“Eeeeeeh?”

While everyone’s getting burnt on the beach, you and your pals can get a head start on this year’s club activities. I’m not saying you have to crawl out of bed at 8 AM and go to an officer meeting. I’m talking about planning stuff out before everyone comes back, sits in their chairs, and asks you, “What’re we doing today?”

It’s a good idea to plan now so that during the school year you and your club officers won’t be running around, scared that the food you ordered last minute won’t come in time, or the papers you didn’t get a month ago couldn’t sign themselves, or the guest you booked at the thirteenth hour suddenly bailed on you because you couldn’t pay them in  advance. Hey, it happens, but those types of things can be avoided by planning.

This is what I recommend before bringing your ideas to all your officers:

1. Write down all the events and meeting ideas you want to do.

2. Make a yearly calendar with holidays and your school’s schedule. You can download a yearly calendar from Vertex42.

3. Make a yearly budget or budget each meeting. You can do this with your advisor and/or treasurer. If you don’t know what a budget looks like, you can download Anime Ascendant’s budget Excel file.

4. Make a contact list of all your officers. This should include full name, email address, and cell phone number.

After you’ve done this, you can talk to your officers about ideas and who help with those activities.

Here are a few ideas for what to do on your summer vacation as a club president/officer:

1. Do an officer retreat. This doesn’t have to be in a far away place. It can be at someone’s house for a few hours. Officer retreats are good for group bonding and making schedule decisions.

2. Do a conference call. If all the officers are far away, conference calls brings everyone together through Skype or a phone. It’s not as effective as an officer retreat when it comes down to group bonding, but at least you can get your schedules and duties down.

3. Create a yearly schedule and email it to your fellow officers. Set a deadline for officers to reply. If they don’t reply in time, call them and ask them. You can download a yearly calendar from Vertex42 (http://www.vertex42.com/calendars/).

4. Meet with officers in groups. Maybe some officers are off vacationing in Hawaii and others are on the opposite end of the state. Make an appointment and meet with several officers at a time or one on one. At each meeting, tell the attending officers what others have said about the activities and duties.