Bad Meetings

A thread on the flexible-learning@mailbase.ac.uk in early November 1996, contributed by
  1. The chair or secretary who rigs the agenda to supress discussion of contentious issues.
  2. The HoD who presents a position paper, budget proposals, or funding figures which nobody else has seen - two minutes before the meeting is due to begin.
  3. People who sit around eating, drinking, or opening their mail during meetings.
  4. The 12 item agenda which is chaired through to item 3 in two and a half hours - then rushed through items 4 to 12 in thirty minutes.
  5. The HoD who either edits the minutes of meetings, or intimidates the secretary to do so - in order to remove any record of dissent.
  6. The chair who responds personally to every single contribution, and thus sets up a one-person 'discussion'.
  7. The HoD who insists on a two-hour discussion of a thorny issue - then ignores the result.
  8. Chairs you fail to distinguish 'meetings' from 'debates', and so allow people to dance with their favourite angel on the head of any lurking pinbox.
  9. Secretaries who insist that every agenda item is further opportunity to rehearse complaints about levels of administration resourcing within the organisation.
  10. Anyone who brings their mobile phone to the meeting.
  11. The meeting which discusses agenda items at great length, but then refers all decisions on them to other committees - which are composed of the same people.
  12. Head of Department: [after making a politically correct proposal which sends everybody into paroxysms of fear, loathing, and embarrassment - and to which nobody responds]