Meetings are to get things done. If people don't find them entertaining or fun, then they don't enjoy robotics as much as they could and should - that's no one else's problem.

As for entertaining NEW members, that's a different story. At the first interested new members meeting, we showed videos of last year and did a nice long robot demo. After about a month, we have invited the new members back next month. I schedule to have Patrick do a presentation and demo on behalf of Cornell Robocup. Applications for potential team members will be handed out at this meeting (hopefully, if the person who has them would ever check her email).

all the people on the team are new members, and at current time, we are only doing fundraising as we are in an extremely desperate situation. once we have enough money to get the edubot, we will then start splitting up into groups ... a lot of the talking is going on between the grade 12s so i split them up into different sides of the classroom once i had enough of their fooling around ... i dont think anyone realizes how soon the deadline for the money is .. any suggestions on how i can get it to sink in??

What we do before our regular meeting is "Something Fun,"
It can be any "fun" activity like "capture the flag" or any game for that matter. And each member on the team rotates who does or comes up with "something fun." Its a good team building exercise and its "fun" after a long day at school.:D