On Sunday Tetsu and I didn't go to church because Tetsu had an end of the fiscal year meeting with his convalescent home's board of directors and I had to attend the neighborhood general fiscal meeting. A few weeks ago we had a similar end of the year general meeting at the church and in the past I've attended PTA general meetings, jr. high club general meetings etc.
I find these not only boring but a waste of everyone's time. I know they are not supposed to be motivational seminars or anything but could we have a little eye-contact? The hour long meetings consist of being handed a ream of paper (in the neighborhood meeting's case about 20 pages) and then the papers are READ ALOUD word for word, number for number! I mean we are talking about columns of numbers for the year's budget and accounts. And each number, decimal point, date, activity, and any other pertaining fact including telephone numbers are read aloud by the moderator or someone he chooses. And everybody stares at the papers. And no one else says a word the whole time. And when it is all read we clap to say we approve and go home.I came to Japan after reaching adulthood so I've never owned a home in the States, never attended a PTA meeting, never been a church member while living in the States, so for all I know this is how it is done everywhere. Is it? I can't recall my parents ever attending a meeting or complaining about them. I think there was a congregational meeting once at my mother's church while I was visiting but it was done in like 15 minutes and I doubt that papers were passed out and read aloud... I could be wrong.
Tetsu said it was the same at his meeting on Sunday too but he takes it all in stride. That's the way it's done. I would think someone could hand out papers a week or so ahead of time, tell everyone to read them, come to the meeting if you had questions or suggestions and then finish up the meeting in a couple of minutes or get on to more important things.
Interestingly, I am the only one in any of the meetings that can't read the dumb papers to begin with so I am the only one who really benefits from having everything read aloud I'm the last person who should complain...
Happy things.
Happy things.I went to the nursery school yesterday and had a last class with the 5 year olds who will be going into elementary school next month. They gave me a lovely little poster of themselves and showered me with smiles and hugs.
Computer questions.
Computer questions.
There are a couple of regular commentators to my blog that are on no-reply (Brendalou?) but I've gone ahead and sent an e-mail reply to them anyway and the e-mails don't come back like they sometimes do when I make an address error when I write to my kids or someone. Usually, if an e-mail doesn't go through it comes back. How about these no-reply e-mails? (Brendalou, are you getting my replies?) And I was also told that someone was trying to comment but they couldn't but I don't know if that's my fault or their computer. What do you think? Last question. Occasionally someone wants a pattern of something I've shown, but I don't know how to put a hand drawn pattern on my blog besides just photographing or scanning it and pasting it in. But that doesn't make a page to the right dimensions... Any suggestions about putting a page or file link or something into a post?
10 comments:
Tanya, I don't know why you can't reply to me. I'm on blogger too so you should be able to just click on my name. I have gotten your replies via email (at least I THINK so!). But funny thing was the email that came to me 2 months late about the fabric I sent you. Who knows where that was for all that time.
ARGH. Just reading about that meeting made my eyes water. I've never heard about it being done like that, but I'm not one for meetings, lol.
I homeschool. So when my kids call me out on talking to myself, I tell them I'm having a parent-teacher conference. I usually only talk to myself when I'm angry, so that shuts them up quick. *G*
Your class is darling. They all look so happy! Is that because it's the last class, lol?
No clue on the computer stuff - I'm new to this blogging thing, but I'll be watching your replies. I'd like to know how to do that myself!
Love the photo with your five year old fan club, too cute! Long meetings with lists of numbers immediately put me to sleep... seriously, it's embarrassing!
Meetings do not work that way in the States...
For our condo, they post the "minutes" including the facts & figures on the bulletin boards, so that those who are interested can read them, those that aren't do not get all of the wasted paper.
My husband has been to the condo meetings once or twice, they talk about the hows & whys, not the numbers...
The only suggestion I can think of with regard to scanning a pattern in order to put it on the blog is to also put in a 'reference square', a drawn and labeled one-inch square alongside the pattern. Then when someone prints it out they can measure the square and adjust if it doesn't measure one inch. I hope someone else has better ideas on this!
Tanya,
About meetings... no, that's not the way they are usually done in the States. I'm in Michigan. Every group I've ever been to has mailed the packets of information (or emailed) ahead of time, and then the meeting time is used to discuss any issues that people noticed and want to talk about.
As for putting a pattern on the web, if you have the ability to create a pdf file, that is a good way to go. When it is printed out, it is the size you created it to be. If you can't do this on your computer, perhaps there is a printing or copy place near you that can create a pdf through a copier.
When I clicked on comments,my google/blogger info came up. So we'll see what happens,LOL!
Only really badly managed meetings are like that! I went to a slew of meetings where I worked and the efficiency varied greatly depending on who was running it. Whe we had engineering design review meetings the materials were handed out ahead of time and we only talked about subjects people had issues about. My church has meetings after services once a year to elect vestry and decide church business but they are very brief.
Re: computer problems. If you have comments routed to your email box like I do and the address shows up "no-reply.blogger.com" or something like that, the sender hasn't set up her blogger account so you can see her email address. Also, who do you have approved to comment? Are anonymous comments allowed? As for the pattern, a .pdf file is the best way to go.
Hopefully this is useful.
Those meetings sound excruciatingly boring. I tend to avoid them, but for the most part, the ones I have attended do not read things word for word. It must be to avoid that "you didn't tell me" syndrome. The financials are generally passed out to the board members ahead of time, and then the treasurer will point out the highlights, try to explain why things are higher or lower than expected, and what they expect in the next year. Probably about 5 minutes worth. Then they will answer questions, another two to five minutes and they move on to the next topic.
When I reply to a message, I look at their address. If it says noreply@blogger.com, then I know it will eventually come back to me, so I might as well not bother with the email.
Most the meetings I've been to have an agenda posted ahead of time, so you can prepare your side of the argument! And sometimes they're boring, sometimes they get rather heated. And sometimes you go away with a whole different way of looking at the question/problem than when you went. No, never been to a meeting where you read it from the paper. Ugh, I am bored just thinking about it!
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