Chairing Meetings and Recording Minutes for Effective Communication

Activity2A
Estimated Time 20 Minutes
Objective To provide you with an opportunity to chair meetings in accordance with
organisational requirements, agreed conventions for type of meeting and legal
and ethical requirements.
Individual
Activity What leadership skills should a chair have?
A chair should be able to give direction during the meeting putting in mind that
he/she has to execute the task as a leader. During any meeting session, the chair
typically plays a role of a leader highlighting the strategies on which a meeting
will be based and also highlighting the agenda of the meeting.
During any meeting, different people play different roles and it is the responsibility
of the chair to allocate positions or assign roles to different stakeholders or rather
participants of the meeting. As a leader, a chair should be a person of vision that
is say he/she should stick on the reason as to why the meeting was called by
drawing stratagems aligned with the meeting goals and objectives. Additionally, a
chair to also uphold the suitable skills needed to maintain the meeting and control
it accordingly.
In your own words, explain what you believe a good meeting is.
For a meeting to be rated good, it should uphold certain criteria among which
ought to include;
time bounded; A good meeting is one that is within the time frame that is, it does
not exceed the dedicated time and the agenda should be covered within the
organized time. Additionally, having a well stated agender with specific purpose is
yet another criterion for determining a good meeting. With a well formulated
agenda, it is simple to evaluate the level of success of a particular meeting as it
gives chance in understanding the achieved goals visa-vi the unachieved. A good
meeting should also encourage the generous participation of members by
listening to all views of the participants with no biasness or discrimination
holding the fact that a meeting requires control and coordination, a good
meeting should be one that has a leader and manages the audience

List the role of a chair.
A chair should make sure that silence is maintained in the meeting
A chair has a role of encouraging members in the meeting who may not be willing
to participate in the meeting.
A chair also emphasises on the fact to make clear for the members in the meeting
so that the point can be taken or discarded.
A chair does not lean on one side in case there is an issue that is to be discussed
that require a debate or there is an issue between members that needed to be
sorted out
What is the difference between a good chair and a bad chair?
While a good chair has authority and power over the members in the meeting, a
bad chair does not have power in the meeting.
A good chair states the agenda specifying even the time each item is to be
discussed while a bad chair calls for a meeting without a clear agenda and does
not specify the time the meeting should end or begin
Activity2B
Estimated Time 10 Minutes
Objective To provide you with an opportunity to conduct meetings to ensure they are
focused, time efficient and achieve the required outcomes.
Individual
Activity What do you believe an effective agenda is?
An effective agenda is one that outlines the different activity that is to take place
during the meeting, puts an awareness to a leader or members on the task they
have to finish, points out the steps the meeting is to follow and finally an effective
meeting encourages members to tackle the un finished activity left uncovered
because of time.

Activity2C
Estimated Time 25 Minutes
Objective To provide you with an opportunity to ensure meeting facilitation enables
participation, discussion, problem-solving and resolution of issues.
Individual
Activity What questions can you use to encourage discussion in a meeting? Give an
example of a time when you might have used questions. Give one example and
five different questions.
At a time when I want to get different ideas from members in the meeting like
when discussing strategies and future plans of say an organisation.
 What should we do in order to achieve our objectives?
 Where can we find another source of finance that will make us finish what we
want?
 Who are the people, who are going to make sure that they find where to get
finance?
 How can we solve the problems we have identified?
 What plans do you have a far as improving the organization is concerned?
What is the purpose of summarising?
Summarising clarifies the agreed item.
To make members know what has been achieved.
Make known of the possible actions that are to be taken to complete a given task
What are the steps that you would use to resolve conflict during a meeting?
Conflicts are always prone in meetings and one of the earliest step that can be
taken is making the intension, goals and objectives of the meeting typically clear.
Find solution to the problem and not concentrating on the same fault as it may

cause more argument.
Control conversation in the meeting such that members are not dragged into a
fight.
Identify earlier what may result into conflict and try to find solutions to overcome
it other than joining the argument
Tudor Rickards proposes that there are five sets of problems. List them and give
an example for each.
One right answer problem; a situation where it is assumed that a particular
problem has one specific right answer e.g. stopping a conflict in a meeting is only
possible by quitting the meeting
Fuzzy problem; problems with unclear limits and restrictions eg problems with not
specific solutions
Wicked problem; a situation where the solution to a problem is unconfirmable or
validated until is tested
Insight problem; is a context where a solution is revealed but the problem not
solved
Vicious problems; is a situation where the proposed solutions causes even more
problems
Activity2D
Estimated Time 15 Minutes
Objective To provide you with an opportunity to brief minute-taker on method for
recording meeting notes in accordance with organisational requirements and
conventions for type of meeting.
Individual
Activity Why do you think the minute taker should be briefed before a meeting?
To help a minute taker know how he/she will record minutes during the meeting.
He /she should be briefed on what to write such that every word Is not written and
therefore a minute taker in this case has to only note done key points.