def METHOD_NAME(self, item):
    """
    Parse the meeting date.
    """
    # Future meetings are plain text
    date_text = (item.xpath("text()").extract_first() or "").strip()
    if not date_text:
        # Past meetings are links to the agenda
        date_text = item.xpath("a/text()").extract_first()
    if date_text is None:
        return None
    # Remove extra whitespace characters
    date_text = re.sub(r"\s+", " ", str(date_text)).strip()
    # Handle typos like "December18"
    if re.match(r"[a-zA-Z]+\d+", str(date_text)):
        date_match = re.search(r"(?P<month>[a-zA-Z]+)(?P<day>\d+)", date_text)
        date_text = "{} {}".format(
            date_match.group("month"), date_match.group("day")
        )
    # Extract date formatted like "January 12"
    return datetime.strptime(date_text, "%B %d")