2009/4/1 AndrewRT <[email protected]>: > One aspect which might be putting people off is the frequency and > length of the Board meetings we've been having to date. The initial > Board has met 23 times so far (nearly once per week on average) often > for 3 hours or more. Whilst this is probably necessary when we're > getting things sorted out, I'd like to suggest that the next board has > shorter and less frequent meetings. I think meeting once per month for > no more than 2 hours would be ideal, so that it's not too much of a > burdon on Board members and we avoid burning our volunteers out. At > the same time we can change the Board into more of an "oversight" > role, and do more "organising" work outside.
My experience of starting up a voluntary organisation is that the workload in getting it running is far, far greater than actually running it. In the first year, our Committee (the executive) met eight times, I think, with an average length of about 4 hours, and the longest meeting running to over six hours. Since then, the Committee has never had more than five full meetings in a year, and the longest meeting has been three and a half hours. The other thing, from observing some meetings on IRC, is that it seems bloody difficult to chair - the chairman cannot easily shut up people talking when they shouldn't, and it takes longer to conclude that everything has been contributed on a topic and he can move on. I understand that IRC meetings are necessary, but they're inherently inefficient. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list [email protected] http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
