Sample Meeting agenda

Introductions 10 mins

Go round - get everyone to introduce themselves, why they’re interested in P&P and what type of thing they like to do.
Go through the meeting agenda (stick it up on the wall so everyone can see it).
Get someone to volunteer to take minutes or ‘action points’ of what is decided and who is going to do it.
Play an icebreaker.

Action points 5 mins

Go over action points from the last meeting.
Make a note of any that haven’t been done and ask someone to follow it up.

Campaigns 20 mins

Progress on Go Green campaign.
Stall in SU.
Big action next term.

Plan some facilitation tools to use and delegate responsibilities for action points.

P&P events 10 mins

Planning going to Shared Planet.

Any other business 5 mins

Social in next month.

Bring meeting to close 5 mins

Go over responsibilities for Action Points.
Decide the date of your next meeting.

End of meeting and going to cafe

Agendas help you ensure not only that everything gets discussed, but that you don’t spend too long dwelling on relatively unimportant topics.

Why use an Agenda?

You’ll get through everything you wanted to .
The meeting won’t drag on too long (if you enforce the timings rigorously).
You won’t spend too long on unimportant topics: if that happens, you can move on and agree to come back after the other agenda items have been covered.
Everyone has a hand in deciding what is discussed, so they feel involved.

Setting the agenda - democratically!

You could e-mail it around and ask people to add items.
One person can invite contributions and compile them.
Some groups simply pass a sheet of paper round at the start of the meeting. This is good, but advanced notice to make sure the right people and information are present is better, allowing the facilitator to prepare for the meeting.

Whatever you do, prioritise your agenda items, get agreement on the agenda at the start of the meeting and put it up where everyone can see it.

Action Points

You can save time and effort by just writing down action points and key decisions during your meeting.

Action points say what action is needed, who is doing it, and when it needs to be done by. Use delegation tools to get people involved in taking on action points.
Read them out at the end of the meeting to remind everyone what they agreed to do! Go over them at the start of the next meeting to check they’ve been done. You should also check the ideas and action points that you think have been settled on for agreement before writing them down.
Key decisions. You might want to put down the rationale behind the decisions the group takes and the policies it sets.

Minutes

Taking minutes can help involve people who can’t make it to a meeting, and if there are people on your email list who don’t come to meetings, you might well find that they read the minutes, send along useful ideas and even come along and get involved. Keep them short and concise, just detailing the key discussions, decisions and action points.

When you send round the minutes, ask if anyone has any changes to make - people often take different ideas away from a meeting!
You might also want to rotate the minute-taking, unless one person is really keen on it.

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