Meetings and decision making

Meetings can be enjoyed instead of endured. They don’t have to be boring.

Meetings are important for discussion and decision-making in any business, but in a co‑operative, social or community enterprise they are essential, and we need to make them effective – ie, brief, efficient and amicable.

Holding regular effective and enjoyable meetings is the best way of ensuring member participation and democracy, which is the key to member engagement.

Co-operantics decision making workshops look at on the role of the chair, minutes and agenda, increasing participation, evaluating meetings, the decision-making process and different styles of decision making.

Downloads:
Three tools for effective meetings 45kb
Do’s and don’ts for increasing participation in meetings 35kb
Evaluating your meetings 37kb
The decision-making process 32kb

Democratic decision-making in worker co-ops
Different decision-making styles 38kb

Useful link:
Reaching consensus in group problem solving

Self assessment
We’ve prepared a brief questionnaire to help you assess whether your co‑operative needs to pay more attention to the way it runs meetings. Click here to check out your meetings skills.