LLL---what were your favourite meetings?What d you love/hate about your group? - Page 2

[Flower of Bliss]

I love our LLL group. We have 4 active leaders, 1 slowly phasing out leader (her baby is now 5), as well as several "helpers" and leader applicants (not that they are officially introduced to the group as such, but they do share some of the work load).

We have 3 monthly meetings - one regular series meeting on Friday morning at 10 am, one toddler meeting on a different Friday at 10 am, and one night meeting on a Thursday at 7pm. We also have an active yahoo group for members. Moms often post questions and such on the yahoo group for the input of other moms in the group. We also receive reminders about all of the meetings through the yahoo group (ie through email, which is definitely my preference).

I have never been to the night meeting. It primarily includes working moms, although all moms are welcome. I get the impression that they don't all bring their kids and that it's a much calmer meeting, but very WOHM geared.

I regularly attend the regular meetings. They can get pretty big (15+ moms with 1-3 kids each). They can be pretty wild with all of the toddlers and such running around. Sometimes it could be pretty overwhelming for a pregnant or new mom. We get pretty frequent 1 time (or maybe a few times over many month attendees), many brand new moms or pregnant moms. Maybe some of them "disappear" to night time meetings when they go back to work? I personally LOVE these meetings, but both DD and I thrive in large social groups.

The toddler meetings are much smaller affairs. Many of the regular moms in the groups are now moms of toddlers, but we don't all make it to the toddler meeting too regularly. Often the toddler meetings are more sit around and talk while the kids play and less structured meetings, depending on who is there and who is leading and such.

None of the meetings I have been to have any refreshments at all. I'm not sure why. I wish we did as I often leave the meeting starving. There are many moms in the group dealing with allergies and elimination diets for themselves and/or their older baby/toddler/child. Maybe this is why we don't do food or drinks? Or maybe it's just too complicated? I don't know. I've been meaning to suggest it for awhile actually...

We don't have an official "social time" during any of the meetings. We often hang around and visit some afterwards, but we really aren't encouraged to hang out and visit and play for an hour or anything like that. I'm usually among the last to leave, helping the leaders break down and such.

We do have new member packets. Actually, they're first time attendee packets, whether they join or not. They include a flier with meeting times and leader names/numbers, a state law right to NIP business card, and a collection of tear offs. We have packets for brand new/pregnant moms and another for moms with older nurslings. Although I've put together the packets, I couldn't begin to give you a whole list of the tear offs - sore nipples, general Q&A, establishing milk supply, etc... All official LLL tear offs.

We have a wonderful extensive group library. Of course any mom is very welcome to come to the meetings and call leaders. At the new $25 membership level they also get to join the yahoo group and use the group library.

HTH

[EarthsSpiral]

Originally Posted by momtoS

As an aspiring LLL leader (someday) I would love to hear what others favourite meetings were about and also what you like/don't like about your group.

We just had one recently at an enrichment meeting about criticism in public, and how to deal with it at home as well. We have had a huge influx of new mom's lately so I think it really helped. I wish my little nursling were here already so I could have NIP'd too, but I still put in my two cents.

Do you receive a new member packet?

No but we do have two lists on Yahoo, I like them a lot. One it FOR LLL and one is for our area's mom's to chat to each other about other topics.

Do you receive emails or phone calls about upcoming meetings? (do you prefer one of the other?)

Yahoo reminders.

Do you have a social time, before, during or after the meeting (with refreshments) What time is best for refreshments?

We meet at a local hospital and always have the room for another hour after the meeting so we can chat and catch up. The hospital provides a pitcher of OJ and water. I am currently the library aid, I was going to be the librarian but I am too pg to haul the books around and will soon need to use a double stroller just to get there!

MOST IMPORTANT ---what time of day are your meetings? what is the best time of day in your opinion?

We meet at 1pm, I really like 12 or 1pm. I wish I could make it to the group that is closer to me, but they meet at 9:30 and it's just TOO early for me.
Thanks

[mags]

I'm a leader. We have three leaders in our LLL, but one is not very reliable and has a lot going on, so we are pretty much not expecting her to do anything. The other leader was the original one who started LLL in our area. She is wonderful and she is the reason why I became a leader, she and I are also good friends and we work really well together. Around the time that the other leader and I became accredited, the original leader had a lot going on in her personal life. I ended up having to take charge for over half a yr and kind of stumbled around, b/c the other leaders and I never really had a chance to meet about what we envisioned for the group and how we wanted to divide the work, etc.. Now that the original leader is ready to focus on LLL again, the other leader is having issues, so we're kind of down a leader, but two leaders is still better than just one. It has been a bit of a difficult transition for the original leader to have other leaders to help her, so we are still trying to find out groove. However, the original leader and I have had a chance to re-group and we agreed that we need to focus more on PR and getting more new blood into our group. All the moms that were our regulars are now on baby #2 (or 3), and they are too busy or unable to attend mtgs anymore, although I know that they would love to attend. I also think that we need to do some other enrichment type mtgs outside of the regular 4 part series, which can get really boring when everyone who attends are experienced BFers and attending LLL more for the social/support aspect, rather than coming for information, like a new mom would be.

Our mtgs at tuesday evenings. We get a lot of complaints about this. Apparantly, MOPS mtgs on tuesday mornings and a lot of moms say that after having to wake up early, get the kids to MOPS and all that in the morning, they are too beat in the evening to drag the kids out to a LLL mtg. Personally, I always loved the evening mtgs, b/c I was lucky that my DH was able to watch the kids and put them to bed. If I had to do a daytime mtg, forget it. My kids are monkeys and I would not be able to really run a mtg and also have to watch my kids. The noise level when the mtgs have a high # of boys is outrageous, we had one mtg where I felt as if we could barely hear anything and it was due to the majority of the children who attended being boys. Sounds bad, but it's just the truth and the other leaders have the same problem too. All of us have all boys, so that may be why. It kind of scares me... the thought of just the three leaders bringing all of their kids to mtgs and that's before any of the other members bring their kids too!!!!! Anyway, I don't know if doing a daytime mtg too will help or not with attendance, it may be something we can contemplate. However, I have been involved with other organizations where ppl complain about the time, and we made different arrangements and the ppl who complained still didn't come. So, I guess that I am a little bit hesitant to up and change our mtg time due to a few complaints and end up lose our regulars too, who seem to like the evening mtgs.

Favorite mtgs for me are always ones where we break off into groups. It is just more intimate and well, it's always fun to get off subject and chat about other stuff, lol!

We do not do new member packets. We give our a flier with 4 mo of series mtgs, dates, etc.. We also have a very impressive lending library, courtesy of the original leader donating her own collection for LLL use. Our LLL is poor, so we don't really have the budget to do nice member packets. We do make a good effort though in taking the time to talk to moms new to the group to let them know what we are about and what services we offer. I believe that we are very approachable, our LLL is what I would consider a more non-judgemental LLL than others I have heard about. I really like that and I think that once ppl summon up the courage to attend one of our LLL mtgs, they are always pleasantly surprised with how nice everyone is and how it is nothing like what they imagined (that was exactly what happened to me too, I was reluctant to attend LLL, thinking it was going to be militant or something).

I do email reminders, and we trade phone reminders. However, if someone puts on the sign in sheet that they do not want a reminder, we leave them off of our list. We are going to go back to doing all phone reminders in the next few months to try to boost attendance. I know everyone has been busy with multiple kids in the family, we think it will be a good tactic to talk to everyone personally again (even if they had only requested an email reminder) to invite them back to LLL or just to check in to see how they are doing. Our last mtg only consisted of 2 of our regulars, plus two leaders. I had an alternate topic ready, b/c I had a feeling it would be regulars there, so we did more of a talk about parenting and it was a nice, laid back, chatty type of mtg. However, I am afraid that if we do not boost our attendance soon, that the regulars will become bored and stop coming. So, we plan to do more talks at WIC, and want to go to OB offices to talk, as well as trying to get into the resource pkt that new moms are giving upon discharge from the hospital.

We have refreshments. We always send around a sign up sheet, but I would say most of the time one of the leaders bring refreshments. We just set it up and ppl are welcome to just get up and get a snack whenever they would like to throughout the mtg.