Chpac-staff mailing list

[erica rothman <erothman AT mindspring.com>]

Hi all --

I was glad to receive this message, and even relieved, as I too have been feeling some frustration at the lack of engagement in our monthly meetings. 

I think the idea of having notes ahead of time to read is, theoretically, a really good idea. Especially if the notes came with some questions to think about or an alert about what decisions need to be made. I am a bit concerned, however, about the time this might take for committee chairs. I could imagine that this is asking yet another hour or so of work per month for Chairs. Are we willing to do that? Also, if the notes come from the Committee Chair, might that preclude other committee members from sharing their perspective which could be somewhat different from the Chair's? 

I especially love the idea of looking at, and discussing, art. The Public Art Flash is a terrific idea, and I would also welcome talking about meatier issues that effect other communities/us. That said, I'm aware that we are adding on new large chunks of discussion time. So that leads me to suggest perhaps a radical idea: is it possible that at least for the time being we have too many committees? Since we are in the process of taking a new look at structure and process, can we include talking about what our priorities are re: committee work? this addresses the above issues, too, in that if there are fewer committees there would be fewer reports to write and read. 

I am fine with meeting for two hours, and would prefer starting at 5pm but I completely defer to people who work until 5 and need to start at 5;30. And oh, how I still wish we could move off of that particular Wed. evening.......

all the best for the new year,

Erica







On Friday, December 19, 2003, at 12:31 AM, Andrew Ross wrote:

> Hello, CHPACers.  I wanted to pass on some thoughts that Kate, Janet and I have been discussing about our commission meetings.  Here are the notes that Kate compiled from what we talked about, but I'm also going to add in a little bit of my thoughts.  Please tell us what you think, because I think we're ready for a bit of a change to our meeting structure.
>
> > After our December CHPAC meeting, several Commission members stayed afterward talking about the structure of the Commission meetings and throwing around ideas for making the meetings more productive and engaging.
> >
> > ▪ One idea is to make the meetings 2 hours.  We are frequently rushing to get through all of the items on our agenda and it was noted that the majority of Town boards and commissions meet for a full 2 hours.  Is this something that you would approve of and, if so, would you prefer to have the meeting take place from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. or from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.?
>
> I think it has become rather obvious that we're not getting through our agenda in 1 1/2 hours.  I had actually started to throw out the idea of two meetings per month, but I think lengthening the meeting a little bit and making it more efficient is the better way to go.  Ideas on efficiency follow:
>
> > ▪ We also discussed the possibility of having Committee chairs submit their reports in writing.  These reports would be sent out with the agenda before the meeting.  People would have an opportunity to read this ahead of time and pose questions or offer comments at the time of the meeting.  This way we could update everybody but save time during the actual meeting.
> > ▪ And similarly we thought about having people email their announcements ahead of time, so that they could be compiled and delivered in advance of the meeting as well. 
>
> Wouldn't it be great if we basically had the "minutes" of our meeting prepared ahead of time?  I know this is going to require a bit more work in advance from all those that have reports to make (committee chairs), but it would certainly help us better arrange our thoughts as well as save us time from stating and discussing things that may just need to be reported in a written form.  And then if there is something that people want to discuss, we all have it in front of us and also have time to compile our thoughts.
>
> As regards announcements, I seem to find that most of these are information items for which we all pull out a pencil to write down the dates of an event or location of a show.  Why not have this all in writing in advance.  This could even be something that is just cut & pasted from emails to be handed out the day of the meeting.
>
> > ▪ We would love to spend time during the meetings talking about bigger, meatier issues, instead of going through updates.  For instance, we could spend a meeting talking about ideas for next year’s “Community Project.” We touched on this at our December meeting and all of you had wonderful ideas – these are the kind of discussions that could be really inspiring and productive. 
> > ▪ And finally, we are curious about your response to the Public Art Flash.  Is it inspiring to take five minutes of each meeting and talk about current issues in the world of public art, or unnecessary?
>
> Personally, I would really love for us to LOOK at more artwork and DISCUSS it, so that we have something to continually invigorate us for the other administrative needs.  Besides seeing the outside projects of other groups (which could be very inspiring to us), we could also use the full commission for brain-storming on our own percent for art projects or other things we'd like to see in Chapel Hill.  I'd like to see us prepare some specific topics to talk about, such as how to get more art downtown, or how we can expand the Transit Card project beyond the schools.  I'm sure we can all come up with wonderful ideas if we only had the time to talk about them.
>
> I also see us having a monthly focus that fits the time of year: budget, CIP, Percent for Art projects, Exhibitions, etc. --basically looking more intensely at our programs during the month when they can use the most attention.
>
> > Let us know what you think!  If you are all in agreement, we could implement all of these changes for our January 21 Commission meeting.
> >
> > Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you.
>
> Andrew (and Kate for all the blue text)
> ____________________________
> Andrew Ross Photography & Video
> home: 919.929.9684
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