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So to the meetings...
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So to the meetings...
Location: Cambridgeshire
As you might have guessed by this stage, we had already had several meetings and they are too far in the dim past to recall accurately enough. This little rambling will be just a general over view of what happens in the meetings.
It has to be said I wasn’t looking forward to the first meeting. I had never chaired a meeting in my life and really didn’t know how to go about it. I now look forward to them as a chance to meet up with the other LHI’ers and see what’s going on with their various projects. The meetings are usually quite informal and are held in our dining room. I generally rush home from work, have a quick chat with Sally over dinner and then we try to make the dining room look respectable. All the books, papers and CD’s that have built up over the days since we last cleaned up are put away and the table is cleaned out. Matilda the cat goes to her favourite bed and we make sure that if she has used her litter tray then it’s clean.
Then comes the bit that I hate the most. We usually finish clearing up about ten minutes before anybody actually arrives and all I can do is sit and stew over who going to turn up and if I’ve got the agenda right. Now these are completely unfounded fears because, the group we have all tend to turn up regularly and if I have missed anything off the agenda they will surely bring it up themselves. Sandy our Secretary is usually the first to arrive and sometimes brings little models of what he has brought. Once people start turning up it feels like the start of a theatre production. I have to stop being the panicky one who’s run around for the last twenty minutes and turn into a calm, focused person. Once the group has arrived we sit them down and Sally gets the tea on while the rest of us catch up and gossip for ten minutes or so. Then we actually begin the meeting, sometimes it’s bit hard to make sure that everybody waits until the meetings starts before talking about there latest breakthrough or what they’ve done but generally I like to think of that as a good sign.
I open the meeting and generally ask for updates from each member and this is the bit that takes the most time. We can get side tracked easily or can enter into protracted discussions on who would be good for what job. I think that this is when the Chairman really acts. You have to try to let people have there say but not dominate, let the members discuss all options without picking everything apart and make sure that everybody leaves feeling good about the meeting. Generally I like to think that I do OK, I try to let everybody have they’re say and try not to let the conversations get out of hand or toss out an idea before it’s been properly heard. However it is a learning curve and I wouldn’t say that I was perfect yet.
Hopefully we will be able to get some pictures of a typical meeting just to show you what they look like. I wouldn’t expect much in the way of visible action but I guarantee that we are doing something. We’re just coming up for our fourth meeting this month and hopefully we will be getting some good news about the Kingfisher pole, which should be in production very some and the First Aid classes for volunteers, which are at the planning stage. We’re also hoping to get our section of the LHI website updated even more by next month so watch out for new exciting pictures! Oh and I nearly forgot but we’re also looking forward to some information on how the new working model is progressing.
So that’s generally how a meeting goes. Once we’ve said all that needs to be said, people stick around for a chat and then disappear and Sally and I can sit down with a glass of wine and relax….
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