Having had to run many different kinds of meetings (ranging from robotics to political clubs to french club...the list goes on ) here's some of my tips:
1.
Divide and Conquer: It's been said before, and for good reason! People are less likely to be intimidated in a small group and once participation fosters in a small environment, they are more prone to speak in a larger group.
2.
Mix it up: After so many minutes, switch it up so people aren't in their cliques and there's no power/elite group. Also, mixing it up allows you to meet with your more categorized committee so you don't have to deal with what Bethy goes through and fall asleep with engineering mentors directing their focus to engineers. HOWEVER, you then want to reshuffle and ultimately you want different groups mixing so you learn something from one another. In a smaller group though, engineering mentors (or whoever else it is) will more feel like they're personally talking to a smaller group and individually cater it to them and not direct their focus to only some students while neglecting others in a large group.
3.
Bring it back together. Have the different groups share what they thought of for whatever idea it was. This allows communication within the entire group from many different people.
4.
Make it Visual: Just pull out butcher paper or poster board and have people write down ideas or timelines on paper with lots of colorful markers. It gets people more involved, it's usually fun, and with ideas solidified it makes groups more accountable to what they plan on doing.
5.
Food: People are happy and thus more willing to contribute to the people who fed them. It sounds silly but trust me, it works!
6.
Create a friendly environment: People are less willing to speak up and participate if it looks like the standard classroom environment. Why? I don't know, maybe they're used to a teacher lecturing rather than actively getting involved. So instead of sitting with all desks facing front, try to have it so you can sit in circles, whether it be in desks or on the floor. Less formal is better for active involvement.
And in response to Sanddrag's dilemma
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It's like our members translate me saying "any ideas or coments?" into "be quite or die." Why the heck don't they talk?!?
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I've noticed that when you say "any ideas or comments"...it's kind of like an after thought. I don't translate it to "be quiet or die" but more into, "well we basically know what we're going to do but we're going to let you put in your 2 cents just incase." A lot of it has to do with how you communicate with others. So open up the floor first and get people's ideas rather than their reactions to something.