Page 12 - Branch Leader Guide

Charcot-Marie-Tooth
Association

schedules. When planning meetings, remember to be cognizant of religious holidays
and special events like Super Bowl Sunday and Mother’s Day.

Signs
Please put up enough well-placed directional signs to show the way to the meeting
room. It can be frustrating and exhausting for your attendees to search for your meeting
room or building due to a lack of prominent signs. The easier you make it for your
members, the happier your group will be.

Publicity

Once you have secured a room and decided on a definite date and time, please let your
branch manager know as soon as possible. This way, we can announce your group to
the community. We will also mail your first flyer to everyone in our database who lives
within a 60-mile radius of your meeting location. The flyer will include your name and
contact information (phone number and email address), as well as the time, date and
location of your meeting. (A sample flyer can be found in Part VI – Samples and
Examples.) Please provide us with this information at least four to six weeks in advance
of your meeting to allow for preparation of the flyers and to give enough advance notice
to people who may be interested in attending.

You may also want to be proactive by getting your new meeting information in a local
newspaper or by putting up flyers in key locations like physicians’ offices, prosthetic and
orthotic offices, shoe stores or other public facilities serving individuals with CMT. If your
meeting location is a hospital, check the hospital’s website to see if it has a list of
support groups that meet there. If so, contact the hospital’s website administrator to get
your group added to the website.

Lastly, we can now create ads on Facebook to promote two of your events per year (one
meeting and one fundraiser).

First Meeting

The main purpose of your first meeting is to bring people with CMT and their families
together to meet you and others living with CMT. In addition to asking everyone to
introduce him/herself, this is a great time to ask your group members what they expect
from future meetings, what topics interest them most, their ideas for speakers and how
they plan on participating in the overall functioning of the group. If you are worried about
not having enough materials for the first meeting, you may find it helpful to review some
of the pertinent CMTA handouts with your members. Do that and you will have more
than enough to discuss at your first meeting.

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