End of the year checklist
Photo by my best friend, Rich Yoegel.
Congrats on making it to the end of the school year. Summer is almost upon us, and I know you are ready – for a break from the day-to-day tasks, for a change of scenery, and for a break from classes. It’s almost here… just hang on a few more days.
As a leader of your student organization, take a little time this week to make sure your group is set for summer. Don’t passively drift into finals week and vacation. Taking a little time to put things in order before you head out could really make the difference between being able to relax or spending your summer dealing with a ton of annoyances.
• Sit with your treasurer. Don’t sail into the summer without a clear idea of what’s in the bank, what bills are left to be paid, and what financial matters need to be handled over the summer. The rest of the world doesn’t grind to a halt when you leave for the summer, and vendors won’t be too happy if you leave their bills unpaid until August. If you have any bills due over the summer, write out the checks now, sign then, and have your treasurer mail them at the appropriate times.
• Review your summer project list. Every officer should go home with a few tasks that, if completed properly, will help you hit the ground running when school starts up. Ask every officer to come up with his/her list, and then use this list as a reason to check in a few times in the coming months.
• Figure out who’s staying in town. If you, as the organization president, are not going to be nearby this summer, make sure you know who can represent you in the event of some emergency. This is especially critical for those of you in fraternities and sororities with houses. Make sure you know exactly who can be on site in less than 20 minutes if something unexpected happens: a fire, a burglary, vandalism, a break in, etc.
• Make a communication plan with your advisor. Schedule a few phone calls, even if you’re not sure what the agenda will be. Every year, students come back from summer to find out that their advisor left the college for another job without even letting them know. Happens all the time. Making sure that you check in at least once a month is a good idea.
• Know what your first thing is. You shouldn’t go home for summer without making sure your members know what the first “thing” of the new academic year is scheduled. First meeting, first social function, whatever. Make sure people have it on their calendar.
• Update your website. If your group has a website, summer is a great time to freshen that thing up. Assign that to an eager young leader in your organization. If your members are keeping in touch, sharing photos, etc., it keeps everyone engaged to some degree.
• Get that budget set. Don’t waste time in the fall wrangling with your budget. Get it set now. Know how much money you need in, and by when, to get things off on the right foot in the Fall.
• Set up some social time with members. Plan a cookout on the 4th of July in a nearby city. How about a camping trip? Get everyone together on June 30 to catch opening night of Twilight: Jacob Buys a Shirt. Getting together with your members over the summer is not only fun, but it’s a great way to remind everyone that they actually like each other. It also gets people excited about the upcoming year.
• Make a list of unfinished business. Get your officers together. Brainstorm anything and everything that you can think of that was supposed to get done this year, but didn’t for some reason. If there’s anything on the list that is still important, assign it as a summer task for someone. Don’t start the new year loaded with baggage from the previous year.
• Make sure your Student Activities Office knows how to reach you over the summer. Are you traveling somewhere? Then make sure they know whom to call in case they can’t reach you. Lots of crazy stuff can happen, and you need to be sure that a responsible person can always be reached.
• Who is checking the mail? Snail mail, voice mail, organizational email? Make sure that no important communication is being missed. If you can’t stay on top of it, then delegate the task to someone who can stay on top of it. Don’t let your organization completely fall off the grid.
• Schedule at least one virtual executive board meeting over the summer. There are lots of online conferencing services (gotomeeting.com is one that I like) that offer cheap ways to get everyone together online for a quick check-in. Review those summer task lists, consider any opportunities that have come up, etc.
It’s hard to motivate to do these tasks at the end of an exhausting year, but leaving with a clean slate will help you sleep better this summer and will put you in the very best position to deal with unexpected crises, cool opportunities, and sudden changes. The student leader who checks out completely during the summer usually starts off the new year at a disadvantage.
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