A.G.M.
Three letters which would strike fear into the most “churchy” of people. This weekend our denominational body in Victoria and Tasmania has its AGM. And, as the chair of the board, I am stuck smack bang in the middle.
In my experience, these sorts of meeting tend to end up with people taking pot shots at each other - always aimed at keeping those in the box seat accountable - “I read on page 53 of your report that you spent $76.00 on stamps - who authorised that?”. And those that are being questioned sometimes anticipate that they will get hammered, and raise all these defences centred around revealing as little information as possible and trying to put the best spin on that information which is revealed.
And after all this, people still have the conversation “why can’t we get more people to attend our AGM? (particularly young people)”.
Amazing that I should ever have to consider how to craft a good AGM, but we have developed a couple of priorities for the day:
- maximise the oportunities for conversation and dialogue, rather than one-way reporting
- invite delegates to provide input and suggestions for key challenges facing conference now and in teh future
- ensure that delegates have the opportunity to raise questions and concerns with the people best able to provide a response
- extract the “gold” from the reporting process - ensuring that we spend time discussing the key strategic challenges and celebrating important achievements
I don’t know whether it will make the day party hearty kind of interesting, but I will let you know how it goes.
April 30th, 2004 at 3:57 pm
76 bucks on STAMPS? My goodness, Dan, that seems a bit extravagant don’t you think? Why didn’t you send the racing pigeon?
April 30th, 2004 at 3:59 pm
Ahhh, so you are familiar with the sort of people who attend these meetings.
May 3rd, 2004 at 4:51 pm
So you would be the “Madame Chariman” - as one gender confused speaker at the conference kept refering to.
I thought you did a very good job and the converstaions around issues facing the conference were an excelent format.
They focussed conversations on some of the real issues, and allowed for dialogue without haveing to have an immediate resolution.
Lets do more of these in future.
June 23rd, 2004 at 9:57 pm
Checked P 53:no reference to stamps but to “motor vehicles - 15% - straight line”(must refer to ministers cars).
You promised a report - did I miss it?
Alan
June 24th, 2004 at 8:43 am
Alan, there is some discussion of the motions and results of the AGM here, but I never got around to making a more general report…
June 24th, 2004 at 9:47 pm
Thanks Dan;know something of the demands on your time but wonder sometimes how congregations and members can make conections with conference and the doings of our movement.Your thoughts as chair and reflections on where we are going as a movement might stimulate some further support for both you and the board as well as add to the connecting.Wonder sometimes whether or not there are a heap of people who because of early sunday school experience or poor toilet training hang in,either becoming immersed in the local,or make their connections with the wider body of christ,and increasingly leave the responsibility for our movement to an ever decreasing number of people.
Perhaps I need another dose of the da vinci code to keep me going!!
Alan