Planning Meetings
Jette Blair
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
From: LEAVEN, November-December 1992, p. 88
If you are working with a
Leader Applicant, consider planning meetings. This “extra ”
meeting, held a few days before your Series Meeting, can be extremely
valuable, both to you and to the Applicant.
This is how planning meetings
work in my Group. The Applicant has had the LEADER ’S HANDBOOK
for about a month and is familiar with the sections pertaining to the
coming Series Meeting; she leads the discussion at the planning meeting
(all Group Leaders and Applicants take part). We explore the meeting
guide, discuss what approach we will take, and decide on wording for
our initial questions. We also might consider visual aids and how to
encourage nutritious snacks. Sometimes, when we talk over how to handle
certain questions, we digress to a discussion of the specifics of guiding
meetings or of telephone helping, or we share ideas about organizing
information so it is readily available.
After this, it takes me very
little time to plan my meeting in its final version and I arrive at
the Series Meeting relaxed. The Leader Applicant knows what to expect
from the meeting and can help me stay on the topic. I also find that
Applicants participate more effectively following a planning meeting.
At the next Evaluation Meeting, I ask the Applicant who led the planning
meeting to be responsible for the Evaluation Form.
When I was a new Leader,
my co-Leader was about to move away and I found myself with an Applicant.
I contacted the Leader Accreditation Department and it was suggested
that I might try having planning meetings to help manage our time better.
I have looked forward to these meetings ever since. Even if you are
working with one Applicant, consider planning meetings. You will benefit
from her fresh ideas and the Leader Applicant will feel more prepared
for her work as a new Leader.
This article was originally
published in Canadian Collage; adapted with permission.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:31:52 UTC 2007.
