Re: Meeting strategies--check-out/Check in
From: Nancy Wight (wightwal.hp.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 15:05 CDT
Rob Sandelin <robsan [at] microsoft.com> wrote:

 check in and check out are EQUALLY as important as the
 business of the meeting, and sometimes, more so.  When the people in
 the group know and trust each other, feel secure and part of the group,
  the business is usually  free from distractions.
--------------------------------------------------------------

In a perfect world, yes, I would agree with you.  But the cohousing
development world is far from perfect, and I think you have to set
priorities depending upon what is going on at the time.  

For example, last night we had our regularly scheduled large group meeting.  
The agenda was for our architect to review a revised site plan (already
approved by the design committee), get comments and hopefully approval.  

We are under extreme time pressure right now because of the summer 
schedule of the planning board in town, and we must get the new
fully engineered site plan to them by June 20, or risk seriously 
jeopardizing the entire project.  We have engineers working on it this 
weekend - we *had* to make a decision.  At the meeting, we had a 
check-in, but at 10:00 we were still not finished and people were 
starting to get frustrated and tired, and began to leave.  Sure, it 
would have been great to have a check out at that point.  But many of 
us live more than 1/2 hour away from the meeting space and it just
wasn't practical.  Even though we may have hurt ourselves in the long 
run by not having a check out, the *business* of that meeting was more
important than anything else at the moment.  

At other times, when we're not under such a crunch, we do manage to have 
both check-in and check out, but we have to remain realistic and flexible, 
and "go with the flow" of what is happening.  

- Nancy

-- 
New View Neighborhood Development, Acton, MA

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