Making Meetings Work: Better Meetings Through Structure, Process and Facilitation

THREE 2-HOUR VIDEO CONFERENCE SESSIONS
TUESDAYS, MARCH 19-April 2, 2024 • 10-12 PT/1-3 ET

Making Meetings Work is a training for everyone who plans, facilitates or participates in meetings. Learn and practice skills and strategies to help you improve your organization’s meetings and decision-making from wherever you sit.

Use what you learn to:
• end endless meetings—get through your agenda items without going overtime
• always know what to do next
• propel work between meetings—and know when you need to meet and when you don't
• make sharp group decisions
• know when you've made a decision and how to move forward
• end being volunteered for things
• turn meeting dread and avoidance into enthusiasm, energy, creativity and collaboration

Making Meetings Work is more than a collection of tools for meeting management. It is a system propelled by an underlying commitment to applying the wisdom and best thinking of all participants to the shared purposes that bring organizations together in the first place. The system generates efficiency, enthusiasm, commitment and coordinated action by focusing on these shared aims, establishing clear and predictable processes, and employing strategies for expanding participation and consensus.

This approach is equally useful for corporate teams, government task forces, nonprofit boards and membership and other formal organizations as it is for less formally structured groups like religious congregations, neighborhood groups, classrooms or families.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Enhancing Meeting Efficiency
• Develop skills and strategies to streamline meetings and ensure that agenda items are addressed without exceeding allotted time, putting an end to prolonged and unproductive sessions.

2. Decision-Making Proficiency
• Learn and practice techniques to make sharp group decisions, ensuring they are well-understood, shared, and widely supported, leading to more effective and decisive outcomes in organizational settings.

3. Meeting Management Adaptability
• Acquire the ability to adapt meeting processes for various contexts, including large or small groups, formal or informal settings, corporate teams, government task forces, non-profit boards, and more.

4. Facilitation and Leadership Development
• Gain insights and skills in facilitating meetings regardless of your role, and understand how to utilize meeting roles to broaden participation and build leadership capacity within the group.

WHO IS THIS FOR?
Group process and meeting facilitators • Extension & community development professionals • Cooperatives • Transition communities • State and local government agencies and task forces • Arts and cultural organizations • Place-based & conservation organizations • Community leaders • Religious organizations • Teachers and youth program leaders • Neighborhood associations • Startups • Companies large and small • Teams, departments and working groups

COURSE INSTRUCTORS
Howard D Terry took a deep dive into consensus decision-making 30 years ago, as a women's economic development nonprofit adopted the formal consensus decision-making process. Howard has deeply explored the fundamentals of Consensus That Works, working with government agencies, companies, nonprofit boards, cooperatives, incubators, and community economic development organizations.

Michele Archie's experience with formal consensus began when a start-up community nonprofit she was part of adopted it as their decision-making model. Michele has trained organization members, boards and facilitators in a variety of democratic discussion and decision-making processes for more than 25 years.

FEES AND DETAILS
Registration includes up to 30 minutes of one-on-one coaching after the course wraps up.

$400 regular course fee/$320 early registration discount through November 30, 2023

Group rates for two or more participants from the same organization or community — $325 per person regular group rate/$275 early registration discount

If you or someone you would like to include needs a full and partial scholarship, please inquire. We will make every effort to make sure anyone who is interested can learn this process.

Register for both Making Meetings Work and the in-depth facilitator training for an additional discount — $675 for both courses/$595 early registration or $595 group rate/$545 early registration

Please inquire about tailoring custom training programs, workshops, presentations or private consultation to your organization.

Location

This is a virtual training. See the event website for more details.

Trail Competencies

• Project Planning and Design
• • Stakeholder Engagement