Organization Management

Once an RSO is established, there are many factors to consider to keep the RSO moving forward. Check out these resources to help!

Effective Meetings: Consider the Five Ps of Effective Meetings: Purpose, Participants, Planning, Participation, and Perspective:

• Purpose: Why is the meeting being held? (e.g., to make decisions, to brainstorm) Don’t hold a meeting for only announcements, if key people are missing, or if people are not prepated.
• Participants: Decide who will be invited to the meeting–what roles will they play?
• Planning: Make an agenda that will be available to participants in advance of the meeting–aim for sharing the next agenda about halfway between meetings (e.g., if you have meetings every other week, send the agenda one week in advance).
• Participation: How will attendees be involved in the meeting? Do you need introductions? Instructions? Ground rules? How will the group make decisions at the meeting?
• Perspective: Evaluate the meeting. This might look like a quick check-in at the end (e.g., How do you all think this meeting went?) or you can do a survey if you aren’t sure people feel comfortable providing feedback in the moment.

Officer Transitions: It is important that at the end of the semester or year, your organization transitions the new officers into their positions. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you transition your organization for a new year.

• Keep your RSO’s roster up-to-date in WIN! At the very least, you should update your roster each semester or academic year (depending on when you elect new leadership). An updated roster will help make sure your RSO’s officers are receiving important notifications.
• Keep transition documentation to help new officers start their role prepared. Helpful items to include: constitution/bylaws, financial records, RSO accounts/passwords, banking information, old meeting agendas, calendar of key RSO events/activities, important contacts.
• Try to plan for some officer overlap time to the outgoing officers can help train the new officers.

Who can make changes to your RSO’s WIN page? Your RSO’s four required contacts at the time of registration and any other member who is granted administrative access to other officer positions.

In the Wisconsin Involvement Network (WIN), RSOs are able to make changes to most of the general information on their own WIN page at any point. We ask RSOs to change their own information whenever necessary as long as the group is sure to remain compliant with RSO eligibility requirements.

What information cannot be changed by RSOs? There are four fields that RSOs can’t change in WIN on their own: Name, Acronym/Nickname, URL, and Constitution.

If you need to change any of these fields, fill out a Change Request Form.