Re: [activities] minutes of April committee meeting

[Mary Gardiner <mary@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Great to see ctte minutes being posted again! Thanks Anna.

A few random thoughts on meetings for the new committee:

On Thu, May 08, 2008, Anna Buttfield wrote:
>           o For monthly meetings, ensure people organised to (1) chair
>  meeting (2) organise tea and coffee (3) keep the meeting on schedule,
>  crowd control
>           o Timing is important for monthly meetings, keep on schedule
>           o Dinner is important, especially for new people, try to get
>  as many people along as possible.
>           o Committee members should be identified in some way — badge, tshirt?

A few other things:

 1. INTRODUCE YOURSELVES. A lot of the time the committee comes across
    as shy about this ("here's Linds... yeah hey") but new people have no
    idea. "Hi I'm Sridhar, SLUG president" etc etc. Every time!

 2. Same thing when announcing timing. "SLUGlets after the break" means
    nothing to newcomers. "After a 20 minute break for tea and coffee
    you can attend either X talk or Y talk" is better.

 3. Back in the mists of time (ie when I was on ctte) we talked about
    having a dedicated newcomer meeter and greeter or two, which would work
    something like this: at the beginning of the meeting all newcomers would
    be asked to raise their hand and be welcomed by the MC briefly. The
    meeter and greeter people would spend their break with the newcomers
    though, getting them all introduced and answering any questions and
    maybe making sure everyone has a little business card with the web
    address and whatever.

    This is still a good idea, and the Proverbial Someone ought to do it
    :) Not necessarily a committee-only role.

-Mary