My Succinct Goal as Business Meeting Chair

[kevin_standlee]

If everyone who comes away from a meeting I run feels they were treated fairly, regardless of whether they got what they personally wanted, I consider my task accomplished.

Comments

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

You are just about my favorite meeting runner. You make it march, which is a virtue when herding cats.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Well, I can only lead the meeting where it collectively wants to go. I've had meetings run away from me, specifically the final meeting in 2006 where we went completely off the rails debating arcane procedural issues regarding the resolution eventually passed deploring the demotion of Pluto as an official planet. OTOH, it's possibly due to the essentially trivial nature of the measure in question that so many of the Usual Suspects, who apparently had more time on their hands than common sense, decided to act like BASFA and have Fun With Parliamentary Procedure.

But thank you for the kind words. It helps that I recruit good people who support the same goals (orderly, well-run meetings where everyone present know what s/he is voting upon when it comes to a vote), and that my own management supports me in this effort.

[lindadee.livejournal.com]

Yes. I've seen what happens when BM fans have too much time on their hands - both at Westercon and Worldcon. (I'm specifically thinking of Westercon where we debated Australia running a Westercon. I wasn't an officer of that BM, and I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my face.)

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Do you have a fan club? Because if you did, I would totally join, and pay dues, and everything.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And I can't even accept a drink in the sense most people mean it, because I don't like the taste of alcohol.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I can't make it to Sasquan, but hope to be at KC in 2016. I'll find you and stand you a beverage of your choice.

[andrew barton (from livejournal.com)]

+1

[andrew barton (from livejournal.com)]

That was meant as a reply to 'I'd join the fan club'.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

Just don't let the ranty-pants get you down.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, there are too many folks of the "if I don't get what I want, the process wasn't fair" persuasion around. As soon as you get two people of that persuasion with mutually incompatible goals, your "victory condition" is unachievable. I think you have to settle for having those of us who understand fairness compliment you as being a good meting runner who does his best to make the process fair, even when some of the people attending are whiny brats.
Luckily, there actually aren't that many whiny brats willing to give up their time to come to the BM at Worldcon. The problem is more likely to be people having fun with you (and the meeeting) within the rules (I don't think I've seen many people trying to do a spoiler, just having fun when there's limited serious business to attend to). Your handling of the Time Travel Worldcon report was great, for instance.