Virtual General Assemblies and Elections

Patient organisations and other non-profit associations often have formal obligations and statutory requirements, e.g. holding annual general assemblies, having the membership electing new board members or approving annual reports, budgets or workplans. If those meetings cannot be held face to face, this checklist should support you in holding this kind of meeting online.

Meeting objectives

1. Meet your board and members
2. Inform your members about progress on projects
3. Implement formal procedures of your association, e.g. holding elections, approval of budgets, discussion and approval of strategic plans or workplans

Implementation checklist

1. Define the intended outcome and priorities
2. Plan the agenda and (reasonable) timing
3. Choose and set up the technical platform
   1. Choose the platform, consider to use a Webinar add-on, set up e.g. Zoom or GoToMeeting)
   2. Establish breakout rooms, if you plan to hold parallel sessions
   3. Set up online collaboration and interaction tools
   4. Set up voting system
4. Set up online collaboration and interaction tools
5. Invite participants
6. Prepare speaker briefings and review their presentations
7. Set up online polling and voting system
8. Manage and moderate the virtual meeting
   • Manage presentations
   • Use interaction tools
   • Manage polls and votes
   • Moderate a Q&A
9. Provision of recording of presentations. Provide minutes including results of online votes.