February 19, 2014, by Ollie

Behind the Scenes: Committee Meetings

“See you later guys, I’m off to my committee meeting” I shouted as I left the house, still blogless for the evening. I was thinking, ‘I hope this committee meeting doesn’t last too long so I have time to get on with my blog afterwards’ when the thought hit me. Why not kill two birds with one stone. Write about the committee meeting.

Instantly I realised how dry and dull that would probably be but after a few more minutes of thinking about it I decided to try and make it work. A large part of what I do is committee and BioSoc related activities, as can be seen as themes in lots of my previous blogs. Normally I talk about the outcomes of events that have been planned. But never have I spoken about the other side of committee work, the wrangling, the walking up Lenton hill to get to the meeting venue or the good time I have. So let me enlighten you, if it please m’lord and ladies.

The meeting was penned down for 8:30pm. At 8:30pm, 7 people were present and another 3 people still to turn up. This was a surprisingly not too bad for a start for a BioSoc meeting. Another 10 minutes later the last of the motley crew filtered in and the meeting was started in style with a chip covered in mayonnaise flung at a Barbour jacket, first on our agenda was discovering that although weatherproof, Barbour jackets are not grease and chip proof.

After that, actual business was attended too, an agenda was drawn up by the President and we went through it in dutiful fashion with the main points being discussed as follows.

• What event do we need?
• Who’s in charge of planning it?
• What date? Does it clash with a deadline?
• What time?
• How much money is it going to cost?
• Most importantly, what fancy dress theme are we going to have?

This method is generally observed throughout the course of the meeting and everyone chips in with relevant points but many a diversion occurs, the gossip from the weekend, the Winter Olympics and the GB women’s curling dream team, you go girls! (and guys I guess, you go too.) Pens being thrown to stop people talking over each other and the Mockingjay whistle (and salute). You know, all the usual distractions.

Haiku and sports secretary Campbell Furniss helped me summarise the going ons of a committee meeting.

We get stuff done, but we tend to drag it out by not getting stuff done, is probably the best way to summarise a committee meeting. Putting a group of giggly students into a room together to make plans will never go smoothly but it certainly goes by with a laugh or two. The feeling at the end of the meeting when plans are finally made and event write ups will soon be ready to be published and members of the society soon in the know about the exciting things you have planned for them is a good feeling. It’s part and parcel of being part of a committee to have to organise and make decisions, so you may be asking, what is the point of this blog, what are you telling me? In truth I don’t really know. I wanted to just tease the idea of what actually goes in my life as a student. The other things that I get up to when I’m not in lectures or sleeping, the two main things I seem to do!

There may be more Behind the Scenes looks at what I do but for now I took a few snapshots during the meeting and thought I’d annotate them for your viewing pleasure!

 

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