Fwd: Meeting structure
Fwd: Meeting structure
- Subject: Fwd: Meeting structure
- From: Jim Foster <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 14:49:58 -0500
Hi All:
Neglected to copy this input to the list itself.
Jim Foster
Begin forwarded message:
From: Jim Foster <email@hidden>
Date: March 17, 2004 2:43:40 AM EST
To: Lorene S Romero <email@hidden>
Subject: Re: Meeting structure
On 17-Mar-04, at 2:01 AM, Lorene S Romero wrote:
How do you do your meetings?
Hi Lorene:
We do our meetings quite a bit like yours:
- we generally open with a "welcome" directed mainly to anyone
attending for the first time. We ask for a show of hands to first
ascertain if there is anyone there for the very first time, and if we
do have first-timers we give them at least five minutes of overview
that we would probably skip if there were no first-timers.
- we then go into club business, which will include some Apple News,
Vendor Offers, and anything else that needs to be shared or emphasized
with the attending members. Our club, BTW, has only a membership of
about 50 people of which only about 20 come to meetings. 25-30
attendees would be a GOOD nite for us.
- we then go into the feature presentation or presentations. If we
have two feature presentations, we will likely have a social break in
between. If we only have one feature presentation, the break will
either come at the end of that session or at some logical point in the
middle of it if it is a particularly long session.
- in the past, we met in a lecture theatre which was not particularly
conducive to socializing as it had a lot of vertical climb or drop and
you really had to be careful when moving about that you didn't either
trip over the next step up or fall downwards. But now we are meeting
in a venue where everyone is on a level surface which makes it much
more conducive to socializing. The point is that we used to try to
rush through our breaks, taking just enough time to switch equipment
if that was needed, or for the key Execs who were smokers to get
outside and have a "hit", but now we are trying to make the breaks
longer so that people will be more encouraged to get to know each
other. We are gradually developing a broader selection of refreshments
offered at breaks and I can see this part of the meeting eventually
lasting at least twenty minutes to a half hour.
- following the break, we conclude whatever feature presentations we
have.
- we do our Q & A session at the end of the meeting. We actually find
that this is stressful on the Executives who have to answer or at
least moderate this portion of the meeting, because in most cases
those same Execs have also been presenters of some earlier portion of
the meeting and they are getting a bit tired at this stage of the
evening, so we are experimenting with trying to schedule the Q & A
earlier in the meeting. The problem with doing this is that it is hard
to know how much time to schedule for Q & A, and we run the risk of
the whole agenda shifting because the Q & A ends earlier or later than
planned.
- the VERY last thing we do is conduct any raffles we are able to
conduct. We don't always have items available for raffles but do the
best we can.
I have been attending several of the local PC Users' Club meetings,
mainly because they meet in the same location as we do which is very
close to my home. They do some things differently than us:
- they start their meetings at 7:00 PM local time, whereas we start
ours at 7:30 PM. Their earlier start time is one thing which allows
them to schedule a very long break of at least thirty minutes into
most of their meetings. This is supported by having lots of coffee,
tea, soft drinks, and often home made baked goods available for
attendees to purchase.
- they make their free raffle draws available ONLY to paid up members,
whereas we have tended to make our available to anyone in attendance.
Our reasons have mostly to do with not having enough volunteers at the
front door to do a proper job of filtering out the paid up members.
- they also promote a form of 50-50 draw where ANYONE can buy raffle
tickets at one dollar each or three for two dollars. They actually
hold two draws out of this where, I think, the first person drawn gets
40% of the take, the second person gets 25% of the take, and the PC
Club retains the balance of 35% for their equipment fund. On top of
this, they also pass around a tin with a slot in the top soliciting
outright donations for their equipment fund, at every meeting.
- they also do their business items first, their featured agenda item
second, a long break in there somewhere, all raffle draws at the very
end.
Hope this is what you were looking for.
Jim Foster
President
Macintosh Users East [MaUsE]
http://www.mause.ca
_______________________________________________
augd mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/augd
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.