Creating Your Rescue Plan: The Two-Week Kickstart

2.1. Week 1

Day 1

Get the officers of the club to agree that a club rescue or club maintenance is needed. Get a bearing on the levels of motivation currently present. If there's zero energy to undertake any sort of action, your club may not be repairable. Schedule a session for day 2 with all officers and interested members. Have the club officers study this program.

Day 2

Perform any steps from First Aid necessary for your club.

Day 3

Begin performing SWOT analyses (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) on each office, starting with SAA. Keep in mind the responsibilities of that office, goals of the officer, as well as Moments of Truth related to that office to capture relevant data. You may want to do this one on one with the officer, or do it as a group (keep in mind the experience level as well as receptivity to feedback). Make sure to capture this data. 

For weaknesses, make sure you work on what the expected outcome should be, and the benefits of closing the gap. For example, if the SAA is not setting out ballots before the meeting start, review what having them handing out prior to the meeting start helps the meeting flow better. For deeper topics, dig into the motivations; the deeper you dig into the motivations, the more potential for lasting change. You can use the "so you/we can" method to delve deeper into your motivations; for example, if you came up with "we want more members" as a benefit, ask "we'll get more members so we can...". Apply that technique for a few layers to uncover deeper benefits, and make sure you record them.

Prioritize the issues you're having; for each action item you'll want to have "who will do what by when": The who is who is accountable, the what is the action, and the when is the target date. Don't overload the officer with issues; prioritize only 2-3 at a time.

You'll want to refer back to your motivations documents if your energy wanes, to remind yourself why you're working to revitalize your club.

Also perform this for the Treasurer for this day. You can tackle the remaining officers on subsequent days, or have one longer meeting.

Day 4

Perform the above SWOT review with the Secretary and VP of PR.

Day 5

Continue the process with the VP of Membership and VP of Education.

Day 6

Complete the SWOT review with the President and a catch-all session for the club in general. The latter can let you compare notes if the other sessions were done one-on-one.

Day 7

You should now have an idea of not only the club's SWOT characteristics, but your officers as well. Start laying out projects and to dos on your month-by-month plan.