8 Tips to Liven Up Your Virtual Meetings and Virtual Campouts

Right now, virtual meetings are all the rage. And you know what? I’m not mad at it. I have absolutely loved getting to see people that I almost never get to see (Hello friends who are 8 hours away!) and even (virtually) meet/see people that I work with that I’ve never met because we work in different states (Hi, all you BSA folks in Texas!). It’s now the “thing”, whereas before, sometimes “busy” got in the way of keeping those connections alive and consistent.

I’ve put together a list of key points that I have learned over the past months of remote and virtual meetings to help keep everyone engaged and excited.

1. Test out your internet connection and make sure you have good lighting. It is hard to keep people engaged when they can’t see you or when you are breaking up. According to a study done by Killingsworth and Gilbert (2010), the awake human mind spends from a third to half its time wandering. That is a wide range, and I guarantee that we tend to approach that upper limit when we are trying to pay attention to a spotty virtual meeting!

2. Set expectations for the meeting. Make sure that everyone is aware that they will be actively participating in the get together! Right at the beginning is a great time to ensure that everyone is using their videos – it’s really easy to tune out and “multi task” on a meeting if you don’t have your video running.

3. Pick a quality Emcee. This needs to be someone who is engaging and fun and can draw out reactions and interactions from everyone on the call. This is a great place to really help Scouts to hone in on their leadership skills!

4. Organize the perfect ice breaker to get people engaged and laughing. Everyone showing off their favorite dance move is one of my favorites because it incorporates some movement, along with a solid dash of creativity.

5. Give Scouts pre-meeting work. This work can lead to some great discussion and shares! Some really fun ideas are to learn a new skill to be able to teach it in 4 minutes or less or even doing some strengths-related work (the Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath is a fantastic book for older Scouts and leaders wanting to delve deeper).

6. Don’t let questions fall flat. Everyone knows about that awkward moment where the leader of the meeting asks a question and nobody answers. Crickets. Be ready to have some engaging examples to share to get people to start talking and call out some names! You can also lead people into answering by calling a name and giving an example of something you have seen them do that answers the question, and then see if that sparks some life.

7. Set up an exciting and surprise guest appearance. This can be a family member who is an artist who jumps on to talk about and teach art, a work team mate who can come on and teach a jump roping skill, or even a good friend who will join and talk about horticulture and how to grow plants by propagating from cuttings! The sky is the limit here – tap into friends and family.

8. Close out your meeting with a fun dessert. Set this up properly by ensuring that everyone is coming to the meeting with their favorite Scouting dessert ready to go. A super easy go-to would be to have everyone come with the ingredients to make a s’more over a campfire (as I have most certainly covered in previous blogs, s’mores are my absolute favorite). Everyone can end the meeting making them while they listen to a solid Scoutmaster’s Minute or other fun closing!

This unique situation is the perfect time to break down physical boundaries that can sometimes limit us and let us connect from people pretty much anywhere in the world.

Have your own tips for keeping your Scouting community engaged in your virtual meetings? Share them with us in the comments below and don’t forget to take pictures of your #ScoutingAtHome moments and join the conversation on social! Tag us using #ScoutShopBSA for your chance to become #ScoutShopFamous.