INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Community Literacy of Ontario

The Dreaded AGM

Source: The Association Consultants Report, Summer 2001

A chiropractor friend related how his sister, who is the president of a tennis club in western Canada, was dreading the club’s annual meeting. It seems that the club members have come to call their AGM “the hanging.”

The name came from the fact that for many years this meeting has seen “the downfall” of successive presidents who have been embarrassed, humiliated, angered, distressed and/or reduced to tears by nitpicking, self-appointed meeting “experts” who hung them out to dry.

It would be nice if those of us who don’t play tennis could excuse this situation as an aberration—something peculiar to tennis players who spend too long in the summer sun and become high strung. We know however, that this isn’t so. We have personally been at meetings where people shouted at each other, we have witnessed a fist fight, seen a chairman cry, and observed members whose feelings were so hurt that they left never to return.

These are some of the reasons that prompted the writing of CALL TO ORDER, a book of meeting rules that make sense for associations. It’s interesting to recall that in a radio interview in 1984, we said “Associations are not parliament. Conducting an association meeting using parliamentary rules would be like a tennis match played with baseball bats.” We concluded our interview by saying, “Small wonder that members hate meetings and chairpersons are confused, unsure and open to intimidation by self declared parliamentary experts.”

Needless to say, we gave our friend a copy of CALL TO ORDER to send to his sister. We recently received a nice thank you note from the happiest president that tennis club has had in years.

Looking to take the dread out of your AGM? CALL TO ORDER is available from Big Bay Publishing Inc. Order by phone at (519) 376-9578 or by fax (613) 592-1407. Cost per book is $14.95. Quantity discounts are available.