While
I'm sure you have your favorite tips for conducting a successful meeting, I
suggest following these 4 tips will get you started in the right direction that
you can tweak as you see fit for your specific organization.
1.
Room set-up
2.
Agenda with appropriate background materials
3.
Start on time and stick to the agenda
4.
Robert’s Rules of Order
Room Set-up
Conference
room style with name tents in front of all members is a great way to set-up
your room. The names should be on both
sides of the name tent so it won’t matter what side of the table you’re on
you’ll be able to see the persons name.
Agenda
Once
you’ve decided on an agenda with your board chair, get it out to the board in
advance of the meeting. Keep it short
and simple.
And
always use the consent agenda to your advantage.
Start on Time and stick to
the agenda
Do
you create an annotated agenda for you and the board chair? If not, I suggest you do and it should have
times on every item.
This
will go a long way of keeping your meeting on schedule and productive. You don’t want any one board member to
highjack the meeting with a subject matter that is not on the official agenda.
For
a sample board agenda's and other materials from Bob Harris, Institute faculty member, go HERE. Or, go HERE for a great website on board agenda templates.
Robert’s Rules of Order (RRO)
If
you stick to the process laid out in RRO I suggest you will find your meetings
will run smoothly and on time. It keeps
an orderly fashion to your meeting. And
it’s very simple, motion to approve, do I have a second, discussion, all in
favor, all appose? That’s it!
One
final thought, keep your meetings to two hours or less. You need to be respectful to your volunteers
and that they are spending time away from their businesses or
organizations. Think of how you like
meetings to run when you’re on someone else’s board.
Good
luck in conducting your next great meeting!
