Ways to Get Board Meetings To Go Faster and Work Better It's 11:30 p.m. on the second Wednesday of the month. If you're on the board of trustees of your congregation, where are you?Board member burnout is one of the main reasons many of our congregations have a hard time convincing people to serve on their boards. What ought to be regarded as an honor is too often viewed with fear—of meetings that go on forever, filled with mind-numbing minutia. No two boards operate exactly the same. All are subject to the styles and interests of the people who sit on them and the congregations they serve. But there are generally accepted practices and procedures that can help them all. Much of what determines the effectiveness of a meeting happens well before it starts. The agenda should be laid out a week or so before the meeting, in time for it to be mailed to board members with a packet of related written materials, including staff reports. That way board members can show up for the meeting informed and ready to do business quickly. In some congregations what is worthy of the board's time is decided by an executive committee, in others by the president and the minister, perhaps joined by the vice president. There is no absolute rule as to which items get turned away, but, "If we think somebody else can decide, then they probably should," said Jon Newell, president of First UU Society of Albany, NY (350 members). Some boards operate on the principle that if an issue has no impact on the budget or on policy it should be decided at the committee level. This not only focuses the board on work that only it can do but also enriches committee work. Once the agenda is set and the packet is mailed, here are other ways meetings can be made more efficient:
"Show me a board which meets until 11:30 p.m. on a regular basis," Carpenter said, "and I will show you a board which does not have a leadership training retreat with each new class of members, has no board participation guidelines, and whose chair does a great deal of the presentation." At All Souls UU Church, Kansas City, MO (426), new board member Andy McCanse created a minor stir a year and a half ago by leaving board meetings promptly at 10 p.m., with part of the agenda yet to go. McCanse, a retired physician, describes himself as a no-nonsense kind of guy who, after years of participation on professional medical boards, was frustrated with the slow pace of church board meetings. All Souls minister the Rev. Dr. John H. Weston said McCanse's departures moved the meetings along a little faster. "My feeling is that if more board members would do that it would benefit the meetings, which need to run crisply," Weston said. In May McCanse became board president and adopted rules he said some might consider overbearing but he believes are needed. They include close adherence to parliamentary rules of order and to church bylaws. He said board meetings have not gone past 9:25 p.m. since. "I'm firm, but I try to be as nice as I can about it and smile a lot." Growth can cause boards to re-examine the way they operate. The style that works for a small fellowship can become unwieldy for a larger congregation with more complex issues. Marian Beddill, a former board member at the Bellingham, WA, Unitarian Fellowship, which has grown from 60 to 180 members, observed that for decades the board was able to take up all sorts of minor matters and permit long discussions. Board members were liaisons to committees and presented informal committee reports. Because of growth, the board ended members' committee liaison responsibilities and asked one member to filter committee news into a single report to save time. Here are other tips from UU boardrooms:
Board of Trustees Meeting Thursday, February 12, 1998 7:00 - 9:00 PM
The symbol ## denotes action items.
Getting Started
Information
Adjourn Next Board Meeting Thursday, March 12, 7:00 PM
|
InterConnections Home · UUA Home · Search UUA Site · Contact UUA
Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108 · Telephone (617) 742-2100 · Fax (617) 742-2875
 | Information Feedback |
All material copyright © 1998-2000, Unitarian Universalist Association
There have been [an error occurred while processing this directive] accesses to this page since February 16, 2000.
Address of this page: http://www.uua.org/interconnections/leadership/vol1-1-leadership.html