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"The two biggest problems in America are making ends meet and making meetings end." Anonymous

You've been sitting attentively for 86 minutes. Yet it feels like 86 days! As you cast a cautious glance over at your water system's newest board member...you find yourself pondering the all-important question: Does it really matter to her if we paint the town's name...or the high-school mascot (Go Screaming Frogs!) on the new water tower?

Your legs and posterior begin to tingle as your lower extremities slowly drift off to sleep. Struggling to pay attention to yet another detailed report on cryptosporidium, you find yourself contemplating important issues such as …who's in charge here?...What's for supper?...And the all-important question…If the building were to suddenly burst into flames…would your legs (which fell asleep nearly ten minutes ago) work well enough to allow you to escape?

Board meetings are a fact of life for water and wastewater systems. When run properly they can be highly productive, but all too often they leave participants frustrated and feeling that little, if anything, has been accomplished (Parliamentary what?).

However, with a little preparation…and a few tasty snacks…your board can easily increase the effectiveness of the time you spend together huddled around the boardroom table, and make the whole process of determining just how big you want the angry looking frog you just voted to paint on your new water tower a whole lot easier.

In spite of the great many organizational tools and techniques available in the tried-and-true Robert’s Rules of Order and other guides, for some reason meetings happen all the time in which presiding members fly by the seat of their pants—going over last month's minutes, rehashing old decisions, interspersing real discussions with commentary, and suppressing anybody who tries to move things along. If you’re unlucky enough to have already sat through countless meetings like these, then you already recognize the importance of knowing how to make a meeting run with a reasonable amount of dispatch. If not, then the future is now, and in this issue of the Safe Drinking Water Trust eBulletin we will show you how to make your next meeting both efficient and effective.

Additional Resources
Check out Robert’s Rules of Order Online
www.rulesonline.com
Robert’s Rules of Order Quick Reference Guide
rha.tamu.edu/docs/rrqr.pdf

Board to Death

"Everyone’s talking but no one's saying anything."
John Lennon—Nobody Told Me:Milk and Honey Album

Everybody knows that the only way to get the most out of your time is to spend it wisely and to make every second count. The same is true when it comes to board meetings. The only way to be both efficient and effective is to be prepared and make good use of an agenda.

An agenda is basically a program or listing of the events and items of business that will come before the board. The agenda is usually put together by your board chairperson. It can come in many shapes and sizes and, for many boards, may be adopted (that is, be approved and made binding on the meeting), or it may simply be a guide to keep the meeting on track.

Tip: Adopting your agenda is often a good idea because it gets everybody in agreement with the meeting plan from the very beginning.

Before you start setting an agenda for your next board meeting, it is a good idea to prepare a list of written objectives, or what you hope the meeting will achieve. The simple act of writing objectives forces you to focus your thinking as you begin to prepare for the meeting.

Once you have identified the meeting objectives you can then begin to put together an agenda. The agenda will set out how you intend to accomplish the meeting objectives.

Tip: When writing your agenda, it is a good idea to put an estimated (and reasonable) time for discussion beside each item. This is a good way to help keep things rolling at your meeting.

It's often helpful to divide the agenda items into specific categories to keep things moving along smoothly:

• Information—Items that do not require action, and may not require any great amount of discussion. For example, a notice that a boil-water order will be issued for a certain neighborhood while transmission lines are repaired. A notice announcing that your offices will be closed during the upcoming Screaming Frogs Homecoming Festival.

• Action—Items which will require board members to vote. For example, a recommendation to provide water to a newly annexed subdivision is an action item that would require a vote.

• Review—Items which require more discussion and consideration than information items, but do not require approval. Staff reports on the projected impact of a rate increase could fit in this category.

• Development—Items which would benefit from receiving the consideration and input of your board members. This is a way of gathering ideas and input or problem-solving on matters which may eventually be brought back to the board for a decision. For example, once the staff has reported on the potential impact of a rate increase, the board members could use that information as a basis for discussion on how to determine what type of rate structure to use.

In organizing the flow of your agenda, it is generally a good idea to begin with easy information items that can be covered quickly. Then, while people are still fresh and there are still cookies and coffee left, move on to the difficult or controversial issues which require mental energy and problem-solving finesse.

Once you've devised a meeting plan, make sure that the information is given to your board members well in advance of the meeting so that they have time to properly prepare. Board members should never walk into a meeting without knowing what it is all about, or without having had the opportunity to review background information on the major agenda items. Remember, you can’t make every board member do his or her homework, but you should always make certain that they had a chance to do it before they arrive.

Additional Resources
Check out these helpful meeting tips
www.women.vic.gov.au/web12/rwpgslib.nsf/ Graphic+Files/helpsheet13/$file/helpsheet13.pdf

Robert Rules!

"A meeting moves at the speed of the slowest mind in the room."
Dale Dauten—author, lecturer and self-proclaimed management guru

Henry Martyn Robert 1837-1923 (a.k.a. the Robert's Rules of Order guy) was an engineering officer in Army. Without warning he was once asked to preside over a meeting and soon realized that he had no idea how to proceed. He tried anyway and his embarrassment was supreme.

This event, which may seem familiar to many water/wastewater board officers, left him determined never to attend another meeting until he knew something of parliamentary law. Ultimately, to bring order out of chaos, he decided to write Robert's Rules of Order as it has come to be known.

Robert's Rules of Order gives us a basic structure for holding meetings without mandating any particular agenda. However, it does give us a basic agenda protocol that is generally accepted as a fundamental meeting plan. While not every single item that we will discuss is necessary in every situation, this basic structure can be found at the heart of just about every business meeting you will ever attend.

Call to Order—When the time is right, start the meeting (preferably at the prearranged time). Remember, you can't finish on time if you don't start on time and every member of your board should know when it is supposed to start since they should have received an agenda in advance.

Opening Ceremonies—While you probably won't have your board secretary run into the room holding a flaming torch as hundreds of doves are released, board meetings customarily begin with some form of a greeting or invocation and a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Roll Call—If your group is a public body, or if you have a rule that states that certain board officers must be present before the meeting can get started, then this is the time for the roll. Of course, you could just have your board secretary look around the room and see that everyone is there, but an official roll call might be a good way to get the ball rolling.

Standard Order of Business—This is when all the action takes place. The Standard Order of Business (not to be confused with another popular acronym containing the same letters!) usually includes most everything on the agenda. Generally, this portion of the meeting will start with the approval of the minutes of your last meeting and will end when you have taken care of any new business.
It may include:
1. Approval of the minutes of previous meeting
2. Reading of agenda additions or deletions for approval
3. Reading of any board communications
4. Listening to any customers who have asked to speak
5. Report of standing committees
6. Unfinished business
7. News business and resolutions

Good of the Order—A time set aside for members to offer comments and observations (without formal motions).

Announcements—This portion of the basic agenda sets aside time for board members to make announcements (hence the name). However, the mere fact that this is an agenda item does not prevent the chairman of the board from making an emergency announcement at any appropriate time.

Adjournment—This is the moment you have all been waiting for. It is now time to stand up slowly so that the blood once again starts flowing to your legs so that you can quickly exit the room and head home for supper.

Additional Resources
Helpful Tips for Your Next Board Meeting
http://www.nfib.com/object/1583773.html

Motion to Adjourn

Another couple of 10-cent words that you will often hear when discussing proper meeting etiquette and structure is Parliamentary Procedure.

In a nutshell, this is simply the process that is used for decision making by most boards. Meeting protocol guides like Robert's Rules of Order and the Common Law of Parliamentary Procedure, to name a couple, outline various examples of this process. Since we've already covered the basics of setting an agenda, it is probably a good idea that we take a brief look at the whole motion-making process.

The motion is the basic unit of business for boards and before any formal action can be taken, that action must be approved in the form of a motion.

Every motion requires six simple (yet highly official) steps:

1. A board member asks to be recognized by the board chairperson and makes a motion (tells the board what action they would like to have approved).
2. Another member of the board seconds the motion (agrees with the first person).
3. The presiding board officer restates the motion (spells it out clearly so that everybody understands what has been asked of the board).
4. The board members debate the proposed motion (keeping all comments friendly and professional).
5. The presiding board officer asks for affirmative and then negative votes (yeas and nays).
6. The presiding board officer announces the result of the vote and then moves on to the next item on the agenda.

While all this may seem to be a bit overwhelming at first, just remember that the most important responsibility of a water board is to ensure that the citizens the system serves have an adequate, uninterrupted, and safe supply of water. So take a little time before your next board meeting to make certain that your board is prepared to protect your customers—as well as your own families.