Meetings Take To Long

[mdfxdb]

Our ward council meets twice a month, those meetings generally go from 2 to 2.5 hrs at a time.  This seems excessive. 

 

What has been the experience of others when it comes to these meetings?  I am ready to leave after about an hour.  I don't see why these should take almost as long as church. 

 

 

[pam]

When I was on the ward council our meetings were about an hour.  Hour and a half tops.

[The Folk Prophet]

Seems excessive. Why don't you raise the issue. Meeting that are that long take leaders away from their families needlessly. As part of the ward council you certainly have the right to raise the concern.

[pam]

And we only had our meetings once a month. The 1st Sunday of each month.

[mdfxdb]

I have raised the issue, proposed a new agenda, implemented a new agenda, and it still has made no difference.  I am at the point of staging a walk-out protest. 

 

Oh, and sometimes we start late......

[Palerider]

Our ward council meets twice a month, those meetings generally go from 2 to 2.5 hrs at a time.  This seems excessive. 

 

What has been the experience of others when it comes to these meetings?  I am ready to leave after about an hour.  I don't see why these should take almost as long as church.

We always held ours to one hour.....I told everyone each time this meeting will go for one hour and if it goes longer it's because you talk too much .....2 hours or more is way to long

[Dravin]

In my experience the primary culprits when meetings run long are:

 

• Visiting/Non-business chatter
• Poorly organized reporting
• Tangent chasing

[The Folk Prophet]

STAY...ON...TARGET.

[Palerider]

Sometimes you get those who want to talk about the Calendar.......

[john doe]

2 1/2 hours is insane. 1 1/2 hours is too long. If you're going that long, your bishop isn't leading the meeting properly and needs to learn time management skills. If it were me, I would just excuse myself and leave unless there is a clear need for me to remain in the meeting. If you do that enough, the bishop will start thinking about how valuable your time is and consider respecting it by conducting ward business in a timely manner.

[Wingnut]

 

In my experience the primary culprits when meetings run long are:

 

• Visiting/Non-business chatter
• Poorly organized reporting
• Tangent chasing

 

 

My experience with ward council meetings that ran long could all be attributed to one thing: the ward mission.

[Dravin]

My experience with ward council meetings that ran long could all be attributed to one thing: the ward mission.

 

In my limited experience they do tend to be the biggest offender, at least of the latter two. 

[Guest]

Ours only run an hour but sometimes it goes a little over but that's because something important is being talked about.  And it's only on first Sundays.  They hold it right before Sacrament Meeting so it can't go over...

[mountain_trails]

This is a sore spot for me.  We were having them for at LEAST three hours twice a month.  Here's why I think it was happening, maybe you can find some help in dealing with it.

 

No agenda:  Probably the biggest culprit

 

"magnifying" calling:  Hey, if one hour once a month is good, THREE hours twice a month should be AWESOME!!!

 

Personality types:  Some folks really like hanging with the saints/feeling important in a meeting/avoiding problems, responsibilities at home.   Coupled with no agenda, and the meetings would really drag on.

 

Boyd K Packer had a talk in a training meeting about overloading members and compared it to loading a camel.  You can load a camel to a point, but one thing too much and the camel will just sit down and won't move at all until it is completely unloaded.  A three hour meeting is disrespectful of a members time (particularly Sunday-sacred time) to be with and edify family and self.  

 

Anyway, good luck.  I ended up quitting my calling over this very issue.

[Mahone]

We had this issue for a period of time as well. I've only attended a small handful in the past and haven't had to in a long time now, so can't say whether it's managed better now or not.

 

My opinion on why it took so long is that there was simply no real agenda. On the occasions that there was one, no-one stuck to it and by the conclusion of the meeting no list of action points had been generated, either vocally or in writing. So the meetings didn't really resolve any problems, merely raised them and were therefore pointless.

[omegaseamaster75]

This is a sore spot for me.  We were having them for at LEAST three hours twice a month.  Here's why I think it was happening, maybe you can find some help in dealing with it.

 

No agenda:  Probably the biggest culprit

 

"magnifying" calling:  Hey, if one hour once a month is good, THREE hours twice a month should be AWESOME!!!

 

Personality types:  Some folks really like hanging with the saints/feeling important in a meeting/avoiding problems, responsibilities at home.   Coupled with no agenda, and the meetings would really drag on.

 

Boyd K Packer had a talk in a training meeting about overloading members and compared it to loading a camel.  You can load a camel to a point, but one thing too much and the camel will just sit down and won't move at all until it is completely unloaded.  A three hour meeting is disrespectful of a members time (particularly Sunday-sacred time) to be with and edify family and self.  

 

Anyway, good luck.  I ended up quitting my calling over this very issue.

No Agenda?

 

find your executive secretary take him out back and rough him up a little bit. He is responsible for the agenda. I see that you ended up quitting because of it.. Good for you. 

[Wingnut]

Plain and simple, your leadership is not following the Handbook.

 

 

The ward council meets regularly (at least monthly). The meeting usually lasts 60 to 90 minutes.

 

https://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/the-ward-council?lang=eng#46

[mdfxdb]

I will be formally staging a walk out at the one hour mark this Sunday. 

[MarginOfError]

I'm going to repeat a number of things that others have said, and I will do it unapologetically.

 

First, let's clear up a few things.  The first question we should ask ourselves about our ward council meetings is, "Is the meeting effective?"  This is not a time dependent question.  If it takes 3 hours to make the meeting effective, then by all means, take three hours.  An effective meeting will ultimately coordinate the efforts of the ward council to bring maximal benefit to the needs of people discussed in the meeting.

 

The second question--of lesser importance--"Is the meeting an efficient meeting?"  That means your meeting is effective, and does so in only the smallest amount of time necessary to be effective.  

 

So that gives us three kinds* of meetings that we could encounter.  Ranking them from worst to best would be

1) ineffective and inefficient (a waste of time and effort)

2) effective and inefficient (a waste of time)

3) effective and efficient (good use of time and effort)

 

I'm not going to address effectiveness here.  I'll leave it to you to decide if the meeting is accomplishing its goals.  But even if it isn't, many of the principles of efficiency could also be applied to make the meeting more effective.

 

here is the list of things I've seen be regular contributors to long, inefficient meetings (in no particular order)

 

Poor prioritization by the ward mission leader

some of the worst ward council meetings I've attended spent well over half the time with the missionaries (not the mission leader, but the missionaries) talking about every single person they'd contacted since the last meeting.  Missionaries aren't very well trained in how to coordinate with a ward (presumably they're attending ward council to learn) and so they don't have much experience in prioritizing what needs the ward council's support.  When we put in an engaged ward mission leader, the missionaries' time dropped to about 15 minutes at the max, and the missionaries didn't speak.  All the discussion was facilitated by the ward mission leader, who would decide which matters really needed the ward council's help.

 

Too much time coordinating the calendar

This just doesn't need to be done.  The calendar is available online.  People should use it.  Some of our more efficient ward council meetings printed the calendar for the next 6-8 weeks on the agenda.  The calendar only received discussion if a member of the council saw something that needed to be removed or didn't see something that should have been there.  Questions about activities were handled outside the meeting.

 

No agenda

When we didn't have an agenda, we wasted a lot of time trying to decide what to talk about before we could actually spend time talking about it.  It is essential that all members of the council notify the executive secretary of proposed agenda topics.  He and the bishop can prioritize them before the meeting so that the most urgent matters are addressed first.  when I was on the ward council, the executive secretary usually made the prioritization by himself.  occasionally, the bishop would jump order if he had different priorities.  Sometimes a member of the council who had proposed a topic would ask to jump to something lower, saying that he or she felt it wasn't as much of a priority as something someone else had brought up.  but the key principle was that all of the stuff on the agenda got talked about before anything that wasn't on the agenda.  The assumption should be that if your issue isn't important enough to pick up the phone before the meeting, it probably isn't important enough to take time from other matters during the meeting.

 

I'll also add that I rarely sat through a meeting where we weren't able to address all of the items on the agenda.  

 

No discipline toward the agenda

If your ward council members, particularly your bishop, refuse to adhere to the agenda, you're hosed.  My preferred solution for someone that refuses to respect the agenda would be at best, a request that one of the counselors attend the meeting instead, or possibly a release.  It is my belief that people that won't respect the agenda either don't have the foresight to call ahead, or they are so self centered as to believe their stuff is always more important than others'.  This should not be tolerated.

 

Lack of coordination and communication outside of the meeting

The first place a member of the council should look to for advice and support is his or her counselors and secretary.  If they don't have the expertise or advice to solve the issue, then go to the ward clerk or executive secretary.  Confidential matters can be taken to the bishop or (preferably) one of his counselors.  It's also perfectly appropriate for the Elders Quorum president to call up the Relief Society president and consult with her about an issue (and vice versa).  If the Primary president knows she is going to need extra staffing on a given Sunday, she can contact the other organization presidents to ask for help with recruitment.  These kinds of problems don't need to be addressed in ward council.  

 

Too many times, I've seen time in ward council meetings wasted because someone waited until the meeting to do all of the coordination they could have done at home.  I don't think it's unreasonable to say that ward council meetings should take 3-4 hours each, so long as only 1 - 1.5 of those hours are spent in a room with all the other council members (mean, 1.5 - 3 hours of external communication).

 

Talking about things that could be read

If you're printing an agenda, you have a beautiful medium for informing the council about any announcements, policy updates, procedural updates, etc.  There's no need to talk about the stakes new policy on hours for the meetinghouse library.  Just print it on the agenda and expect people to read it.  If the announcement is unclear, then someone can ask that it be discussed.  

 

 

The one other thing I've noticed that makes ward council meeting run long--but isn't necessarily a bad thing--is people having fun.  Toward the end of my time on the ward council, I think a lot of us actually looked forward to ward council meeting.  Sure, there were weeks that we could have finished a 90 minute meeting in 75 minutes.  But we enjoyed each other's company and enjoyed the work that we were doing.  There is some value in that because the ward council works a lot better when those who sit on it enjoy being together.  Besides, I felt a lot better about those fun 90 minute meetings where lots was accomplished than I did the dreadful 60 minute meetings where nothing got done.

 

 

 

* There is no such thing as an efficient and ineffective meeting.  By definition, if the meeting wasn't effective, it can't be efficient.

[The Folk Prophet]

I see that you ended up quitting because of it.. Good for you. 

 

[The Folk Prophet]

I will be formally staging a walk out at the one hour mark this Sunday. 

 

[MarginOfError]

 (regarding quitting)

I don't see this as thumbs-down worthy. I've nearly quit being the clerk once because I couldn't stand the inefficiencies and absurdities being advanced by the counselors at the time.  I would have been a lot happier if I had quit.  (I only stayed because on the very day I went to tell the bishop I wanted to be released, he told me his wife had just been diagnosed with cancer.  I stayed because I wasn't going to create more headaches for him at the time, and by the time her treatments were done, the counselors had been changed.  I just had to find ways to entertain myself in the meantime...usually at those counselors' expense :) )

 

 (regarding walking out)

I've done this.  It's quite effective.  

Me: "I'm sorry, I have to leave now.  The time I've allotted for this meeting has expired"

Someone else: "You can't go.  We're not done yet."

Me: "Then we'll have to finish some other time.  I have other important things that need to be done."

 

I still walk out of Sunday School and priesthood lessons at the time they are supposed to end.  hasn't had much effect there yet.

[mountain_trails]

No Agenda?

 

find your executive secretary take him out back and rough him up a little bit. He is responsible for the agenda. I see that you ended up quitting because of it.. Good for you. 

The problem persisted through multiple changes in exec sec so I tend to beleive the "plan to have no plan" originated further up the chain, so to speak.

[mountain_trails]

  -in regard to quitting

Maybe.  I'm not sure though what another solution would have been, given the circumstances I found myself in (which I realize I haven't communicated-not the topic of the thread)  :)

[mountain_trails]

Plain and simple, your leadership is not following the Handbook.

 

 

https://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering-the-church/the-ward-council?lang=eng#46

This was brought up.  The wording "at least monthly" allows for it to happen *more* often.  And maybe there was some intention that it would last in the 90 minute range, but the talkers would get talking, tangents were explored, and nothing (or little) ended up being accomplished other than three hours off the clock.