Toolkit

Here are some platforms to support planning with club members and to make online events and meetings happen.

Online Planning Tools

You may find that it is more difficult to work collaboratively with your club when you are working remotely rather than in person. Below are some useful platforms that you can use in order to make planning an easier collaborative effort.

Online Event & Meeting Platforms

Below are some recommended platforms and apps to help you facilitate engaging meetings, activities and events. You can find links to the websites of these platforms as well as some helpful video tutorials and notes on the key features of each.

These activities are great for connecting with club members and for building a sense of community online.

Discussion Ideas

• Question of The Day: Make a schedule of who will come up with each day’s question. Then post it in a chat for everyone to answer. 
• Book Club: If possible, your club can invest in an e-book for each member (this may work better for smaller clubs). Choose a book that reflects on a social issue that your club addresses, covers a topic that everyone finds interesting, or is based on a story that everyone wants to find out more about. You could also use the Queen's Reads book! Do a weekly book club meeting where you discuss the themes of the book, any questions that people want to address, etc. A club leader could oversee the generation of discussion prompts about that week’s chapter.
• Worldly Discussions: Have a scheduled meeting (weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc.) and discuss events that have been happening in the world
• Leadership Discussions: Talk about what leadership is/what it means to you and your team. What leadership approach do students on your team have? How can you make sure that all leadership styles are valued on your team? 
• TED Talks: Find a TED Talk that students in the club can watch ahead of time and discuss in a meeting. What resonated with you? What did you potentially disagree with? 

Methods of Discussion/Ways to Share Ideas

• Menti: “Build interactive presentations with the easy-to-use online editor. Add questions, polls, quizzes, slides, images, gifs and more to your presentation to create fun and engaging presentations. Your audience uses their smartphones to connect to the presentation where they can answer questions. Visualize their responses in real-time to create a fun and interactive experience.”
• Padlet: “Make beautiful boards, documents, and webpages that are easy to read and fun to contribute to.”
• Flipgrid: “Flipgrid is 100% free for all educators, learners, and families. Engage and empower every voice in your classroom or at home by recording and sharing short, awesome videos...together!” It's like Padlet but take video recordings and share! 

Ideas for Icebreakers & Socials

• Apps for Multiplayer Games: This list has numerous app options for playing group games! Apple and Google Play options available!
• Online Games: Here's a comprehensive list of online games.
• Pet Café: Everyone brings their pet to the video call and you can chat while cuddling with pets
• Team Coffees: Make your favourite coffee, tea or other drink and chat on a video call! Imagine you are back at CoGro.
• Arts & Crafts: Consider materials that would be needed in advance and inform your team ahead of time to ensure they can get what they need. Some activities include hosting a paint night, making collages or group origami.
• Recipe Party: Everyone can make their favorite meal, snack, dessert etc. Create a shared document that everyone can add their recipe to in order to make a Club Cookbook.
• Coffee House: Set up a Virtual Coffee House by having members of the team sign up to perform. It can be singing, comedy, poetry, or playing an instrument! Have a night of entertainment and be able to appreciate the talented group that you are working with.
• Kahoot: A game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home. Sign up for free!
• TriviaMaker: An app for making and hosting trivia games.
• Netflix Party: Have one member share their Netflix screen on Zoom for everyone to watch together. Make popcorn and use the chat box to talk about the movie.
• Get Active: Do an ARC virtual workout class together or try following a yoga class on YouTube.

These are useful templates and checklists that can be used to stay organized, plan with your club, and reflect on the experiences you are having.

For Staying Organized

• Work PlanTemplate (Excel, 17KB) from the Student Experience Office
• Program Plan Template (Word, 17KB) from the Student Experience Office
• Budget Template (Excel, 20KB) from the AMS Clubs Office

For Planning Events

• Online Event Planning Checklist (Word, 48KB) from the Student Experience Office
• Accessible Event & Meeting Checklist (PDF, 513KB) from the Queen's Accessibility Hub
• Event Run Template (Word, 20KB) from the Student Experience Office

For Assessing

• Sample Event Survey Questions from Survey Monkey
• Workshop Survey (Word, 52KB) from the Student Experience Office

For Reflecting

• EL Wrap Around Form from the Queen's Experiential Learning Hub
• What, So What, Now What? Reflection (Word, 18KB) from the Student Experience Office

Check out these articles and videos on leadership and student life!

Articles

• The Best Leaders are Versatile Ones by Robert B. Kaiser
• How to Lead Successful Teams when Everyone is Remote by Rachel Lefkowitz 
• How to Make Good Decisions in High-Stress Situations by Rachel Lefkowitz 

Videos

• Everyday Leadership from Drew Dudley
• Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education from Doug Parkin
• Part One and Part Two of COVID-19 Leadership Tips: Leading in Times of Crisis from Linda Shell