You all have been most helpful. I like the writing it out so the three people can discuss it at the next meeting. LOL! Attendance was extremely poor last year from what I hear. I hope it will be different this year.
What I generally try to do is distribute any info that needs to be addressed(budget,financial reports, bylaw changes, etc) and ask them to check it over and come back the next month for a vote. I will also advertise this in our biweekly school newsletter so that even people who don't come to meetings can see. What generally happens is that there are very few questions and things get voted thru. I also will try to push getting any questions to me before a meeting so if it needs specfiic research I have time to find the answer. That really works....communication between meetings.
I try to put the agenda in order by the dates of the events, unless something takes alot of planning and I will mention it. We dont do commitee or board meetings, just every month general meetings that are only one hour...no more! If an event needs more time we will hold meetings for people who are interested in that event, we do this with our fall festival.
I also do not have guest speakers unless they actually has something that deals with our group, I have found that they don't bring in any more people to a meeting and sometimes they bring in less. We do the serious stuff like our principal search, etc. I know there have been times that I look at the agenda and thing...we have so much to cover but for the most part with some timely planning you can get through it...good luck
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Okay here's my recommendations.
Put it all in writing and distribute. Make perfectly clear that they need to take them home to review them and bring their questions and suggestions to the next meeting where these would be approved. Budget, bylaws, Fundraising. Briefly describe these but make clear that further discussion will occur at the committee meetings themselves. (committees can arrange to meet at another time) Collect the names of those interested in helping for the committees but let them do their committee work outside of your regular meeting. They can bring their final discussions back to the board at a later meeting. Use your committees to keep your meetings shorter. This would include Bedget and Bylaws. The committees go through what needs to be done and then just brings the finished products back to the membership for approval.
As for your speakers, if you don't need what they are bringing to discuss in your minutes, you can put them off the agenda after you adjourn the official meeting. This allows uninterested parties to leave the meeting if necessary without to much of a ruckus.
When we wrote our bylaws and constitution I distributed them before the meeting to anyone who wanted them, then had them available at the meeting. Everyone went home and reviewed then discussed at next meeting.
As for budgets, we(the board) put together a budget for the year, we present it at our 2nd meeting have a brief discussion and vote. If there are some real issues with areas we table it, revise and bring it for approval to the next meeting. Usuall the only questions we get our about explaining what a program is to someone.
How about sending a note home with the meeting agenda that a review and discussion of the bylaws will be held a half hour before the meeting is scheduled to start. Explain that it is a necessary step in obtaining your tax exemption. That way the discussion will end at a specific time and not go on all evening and you can hold your vote during the meeting.
We have never gone over budgets before. I am thinking I can skip that part. If a meeting last over 30 minutes I too am ready to leave. I really don't want to read the bylaws. They will be new so I didn't really know what to do. How can we approach that then? Say "Here's a copy of our bylaws. Please review and the discussion will be tabled until the next meeting?" I don't want any gliches whatsoever with these bylaws. We really need to get our tax exempt status as quickly as possible.
