Recurring meetings and standing groups

Fixed slot or fresh poll each time?

There are two honest ways to run a recurring meeting. The first is to fix a slot and keep it: a team stand-up at 09:15 every weekday, say, where the stability is the point and anyone who cannot make it simply misses that day. The second is to find a new time for each cycle, which suits groups whose members have changing diaries: a book club, a board, a volunteer committee, a cross-company working group.

The mistake is to treat the second kind as if it were the first. A monthly meeting with twelve busy people that was fixed once and never revisited will shed attendees one by one, and each departure is read as a lack of interest when it was really a lack of a workable time.

FINDaTIME has no recurring-poll feature, and that is deliberate: each cycle gets its own poll, with slots chosen for that month's calendar. The dashboard keeps every poll you have run, so the previous cycle's participant list is there to copy into the next one, and the closed polls are a record of what the group chose and who could make what.

Set a cadence for polling, not just for meeting

Decide in advance when the poll for the next meeting goes out and when it closes. A workable rhythm for a monthly meeting is to send the poll three weeks ahead with a deadline a week later; for a fortnightly one, send it the day after the current meeting with a four-day deadline. Put the poll date in your own calendar so it happens without a reminder from anyone.

A deadline is what makes the cadence stick. Without one, a poll waits for its last straggler for ever and the meeting date arrives before the vote closes. In FINDaTIME a deadline closes the poll by itself at the set time, refuses late ballots, and emails you the outcome, so you can book the slot that evening rather than chasing people.

Choose slots that reflect the group, not the organiser

For a standing group, offer slots in the two or three patterns the group has settled into, not whatever is free in your own week. If past polls show that Tuesday afternoons and Thursday mornings are the only times that ever win, propose two of each and skip the Monday morning that always comes last. Four to six slots is plenty; a group that meets every month does not need a dozen options to consider.

Look at the Unavailable marks from the last cycle as well as the winner. The ranking puts slots that nobody has ruled out above everything else, so a slot that was popular but lost to a single Unavailable is a strong candidate for next time if that one person's constraint was temporary.

Rotate the inconvenient times

When members are spread across time zones, or some have school runs and some have evening shifts, the slot that minimises unavailability tends to be the same slot each cycle, and the same two people pay for it. A poll per cycle gives you a lever: alternate between two windows and say openly that you are doing so. The time zone guide covers the mechanics.

Newcomers, leavers and the organiser's own vote

People join and leave standing groups constantly. In FINDaTIME you can add someone to an open poll after it has gone out; they get their own private link and their answers are counted alongside everyone else's. A poll holds up to 50 participants. If someone leaves, simply leave them off the next cycle's poll; they stay on the closed ones as a record.

Vote in your own poll, too. The organiser has a ballot on the dashboard, and a convenor who never states their own constraints ends up chairing meetings at times that suit everyone but them.

Book it the same way every time

When the poll closes, book the winning slot straight from the results page. FINDaTIME creates the event on your Google Calendar, with a Google Meet link if that is how the group meets, and invites every participant, including anyone who voted Unavailable or did not vote, so the invitation itself tells the whole group the decision. One habit saves confusion: book each cycle as its own event rather than editing a recurring one, because the time will differ from month to month and a recurring event with exceptions confuses everyone's calendar.

Know when to stop

The poll results are also an early warning. If three cycles in a row the best slot still has two or three people unavailable, or half the group never votes, the problem is not the time. Either the group has grown too large to meet as one and should split, or the meeting has outlived its purpose and should become an email. A standing meeting that ends on purpose is a success; one that fades out is not.

A short checklist

• Decide whether the slot is fixed or polled, and say which.
• Put the poll date and deadline in your own calendar.
• Offer four to six slots drawn from the patterns that have worked before.
• Add newcomers to the open poll; vote yourself.
• Book each cycle as its own calendar event.
• Watch the Unavailable counts over several cycles.

To run the next cycle, create a poll.