Meetings

[Martin Owens]

> > After being a part of two ma-ubuntu meetings I've decided that although
> > our meetings are effective, I think we could accomplish the same amount
> > in less time if we tried something a little different. I've noticed that
> > people often need to repeat themselves because we have a lot of
> > simultaneous talking going on. I know no one intends for that to happen
> > but it's very common when a general question is asked of a group. This
> > situation is also frustrating when comments aren't heard so another
> > person will make an identical remark not long afterwards on the same
> topic.

I do agree that there was a number of side issues and various things
going on; I want to enforce a couple of things for the meetings as
follows:

 1) People _must_ put their issues on the agenda in advanced, there
were about 5 things that were scribbled on the agenda print out or not
on it at all and trying to guide the meeting from each item and making
sure a decision is made on each one was hampered by the agenda not
being solid in advance; this also means that others should try and
bring print outs and anything that didn't make it on the agenda can be
brought up at the end.
 2) Personal stories and interesting side tracks should be tempered in
an effort to keep to the point of the item being talked about. Once
we've got everything out the way we can go to the pub or hang about
and finish off the pizza.
 3) Theresa is absolutely right when she calls for no interruptions,
i'd like to think that we can cultivate the right kind of group of
people that doesn't been a bean bag voice switch. We're only human so
sometimes interruptions are required in order to correct or even
argue; but I don't want to see concurrent thread spawning (non geek:
talking about other things while other talk about the topic at hand)
 4) I liked the idea of having different people take different items
on the agenda that their passionate about and making everyone aware of
them. I thought Brians talk on education was a perfect example. I say
this because I'm most passionate about getting our team the resources
it needs, mike likes to set up activities and others have their
priorities so perhaps we should organise ourselves around that idea?

If there are no objections I will put these ideas on the wiki under
the meetings section.

Best Regards, Martin Owens (SAFLFL)