[wplug-board] Tomorrow's meeting agenda

[Patrick Wagstrom]

> Not that this is your fault, Patrick, it's just frustrating.
> 
> Does anyone have time to make vouchers?

Umm, do we need vouchers?  It's not like we don't know who these people
are.  Hopefully we can give them away at the picnic or something like
that.

> For clarity:
> "The WPLUG board moves dues be set at $10 per year starting Aug 6 2006"

Perfect.

> I keep forgetting about all the "stuff" that needs to be done at a meeting.
> 
> May I impose the request that people make a _serious_ effort to keep
> reports as brief as possible!  We're going to struggle to fit this
> into an hour.

Easiest way to do this is to write down ahead of time what you want to
say.  Here's a few hints for giving effective reports:

Instead of saying:
We're having problems with booking rooms at Carnegie Mellon in the
future.  While it's been a very good home for us, we started to look
elsewhere.  We looked at locations foo, bar, and baz.  Here were the
characterisitics of each ... finally after talking to Sue at the Library
we decided to meet there.

Say:
Due to scheduling problems at CMU, we had to look elsewhere.  After a
search, the Squirrel Hill public library was selected.


Instead of saying:
The finances are currently in good shape, we're not hurting.  We spent
money on the following things in the last few months...   We're still
working on getting the funding procedure down, but it's been good.
Here's an example funding request.  Blah Blah Blah.

Say:
I've produced a copy of the financial report - as you can see we're in
good health with $XX left in our cash and $XX left in the bank.  If you
have questions, feel free to talk to me after the meeting.

* Don't really leave room for discussion in your report.  It's a report,
not discussion.  If they want to discuss, make a motion or talk after
the meeting.  Discussion doesn't get recorded in the minutes because
it's not an action anyway.

* Practice sounding confident in giving report.  If you sound like you
know what you're doing people are more likely to respond positively and
understand better (yes, just sounding like you know what you're doing
makes people understand more).

It's amazing how much faster meetings are when people write down what
they're going to say.  It avoids needing to backtrack because you forgot
something.  I know this may sound simplistic or berating, but it's not.
I felt like an idiot the first time I did this, but it really works
well.  The membership will thank us.

--Patrick