All about the kanji, part 4: 会

This is one of those kanji with a pretty vague set of meanings: association, party, join, meet. The on reading is え or かい, and the kun reading is あう or あつます or あわせる.
If that doesn't sound familiar, here's some words we learned that contain this kanji:

• かいぎ (meeting), 会議 in kanji, uses the on reading;
• 会う, pronounced あう, is the dictionary form of あいます, to meet.

On its own, it means 'party', 'club', or some 'official' getting together. In combination with the last kanji we learned, for example, we get 国会 (こっかい), which means National Diet (the parliament in Japan), or just generally parliament or congress.
To show that the order of kanji can make a big difference, consider 社会 (しゃかい) meaning 'society', 'public', versus 会社 (かいしゃ), which you may remember as 'company', 'corporation' (a かいしゃいん is an office worker). 社 means 'association', 'company', 'firm' or 'office'. There's a whole bunch of compounds like these ones, all conveying some sense of a get-together or group. Most make sense if you look at the meaning of the other kanji.