[17570] in APO-L
Re: Meeting lengths
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barton Mc Laughlin)
Fri Nov 14 14:55:31 1997
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 14:54:01 -0500
Reply-To: Barton Mc Laughlin <barton@ECN.PURDUE.EDU>
From: Barton Mc Laughlin <barton@ECN.PURDUE.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <199711141625.LAA19954@cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu> from "John Lyon"
at Nov 14, 97 10:23:34 am
>
> Hi all.. There has been a lot of talk in our chapter recently about the length
> of active meetings. I was kind of curious, how long do these meetings last in
> your chapters? Do you also then have other meetings (i.e. exec, etc.) during
>the week as well, or is all of the chapter business presented during the active
> meeing?
>
> John Lyon
> Xi Delta
> Texas A&M University
As a member of a large chapter (180 listed as actives), I can understand your
problem. You do so much service that every co-chair wants to tell the entire
chapter all about what they are doing, making the meetings very, very long.
Something that we tried (and failed) was a time limit for announcements as this
was applied indiscriminantly. Now we have two different types of announcements.
"Informational" announcements may be along the lines of what's up with a
committee, Blood Drive and Overnigher dates, etc. "Motivational" announcements
are longer and are more about things relating to the chapter, etc. Recent
talks of this type might be a condensed report of a speaker at a Leadership
Development committee workshop, or a talk about the Aids Quilt. This has
lowered our meeting length to no more than about an hour or and hour and a
half. Our meetings are not required (except for Final PRS, Elections, Tapout,
and Initiation) and attendance is around 40%. However, our meetings are on
Wednesdays, a big Evening Exam day here. They are every other week.
Our executive board meets every week. Also, we have what is called a Senior
Board. Instead of Sargeant-at-arms, we have a Senior Coordinator, who is in
charge of the duties of the Sargeant-at-arms, by-law and policy interpretations
(such as Risk Management) and runs the Senior Board Meetings. In order for
changes to be made to the by-laws, they must be approved by the Senior Board.
Any brother who is classified as a senior or who has been in the chapter for
a certain number of semesters (Princes can vote this semester) can vote.
Most of the discussion about by-law changes happen here, and other topics
relating to the chapter are discussed. Any brother can attend, and pleges are
required to attend one meeting. We have about 6 a semester. It seems to have
worked rather well, and it could be something that you could implement.
We normally keep discussion rather brief, since we have several brothers with
strong personalities who like to debate things to death. The only real
explosive topic that we talked about recently would not be appropriate to talk
about here, but it was handled and it's all good.
I hope this helps.
ThankyourdrivethruinLFS,
Bart McLaughlin
Alpha Gamma Sectional Representative
barton@ecn.purdue.edu
"Like Weebles we wobble but we won't stay down." -- The Insyderz
