• a. How often must you meet?

• b. What notice of meetings is required?

• c. What constitutes a quorum?

• d. What powers do you have as Officers and Directors?

• e. What functions can/should you delegate to management?

• f. What actions can only your Association, as opposed to the Board acting alone, take?

a. Date should be convenient as possible for Directors and Management; the meeting place should be businesslike.

b. Announce the schedule by bulletin board, newsletter, and elevator reminders.

c. Establish a policy that Directors will give notice of potential meeting absence as early as possible.

d. Provide for Owners/Residents Open Forum at specified time before meeting to encourage owners/residents to attend and observe meetings.

f. Maintain an OPEN MEETING policy, using Closed EXECUTIVE SESSIONS sparingly to discuss personnel, individual unit owner problems, matters with your attorney, legal issues.

a. As liaison, stay in contact with both Management and Directors and keep BOTH informed. There should be no surprises at the meeting.

b. Make certain Board members are appropriately addressed.

c. Keeps in mind, Directors make policy; they are not managers.

a. Make it specific -- forget simple categories such as "Old Business, 11 "New Business." (List the topics to be addressed.)

b. Keep it manageable: if the plate is overflowing, prioritize the items and take care of what is most important first.

Lesser items may even be postponed.

c. Make certain Board has Management Report and all backup materials well before the meeting. Directors have an obligation to review all materials and come to the meeting prepared to act.

d. Solicit Board Members for items they want included; or have a standing policy for them to contact you by a date certain before the meeting if they have agenda items.

e. Set a target time for adjournment.

1. Consider setting time targets/limits for specific items, particularly verbal reports.

2. Schedule any visitors --e.g. auditors, engineers-- at the start, keeping in mind you may be paying for their time.

3. Avoid going beyond 10 pm or much longer than two hours. Fatigue produces fuzzy thinking and poor decisions.

4. Use Executive Sessions sparingly when necessary.

5. At the meeting.

a. Make judicious use of your four Best Meeting Friends.

1.Roberts' Rules of Order relaxed to the degree possible.

2. A gavel -- hopefully only gentle taps needed, but don't hesitate a strong one as appropriate.

3. Two essential four letter F-words -- Fair and Firm

b. Provide pad and pen to all participants.

c. Always START ON TIME.

d. Adopt the agenda, including the target time for adjournment, amending one or both is necessary.

e. Make certain every Director has input call upon them individually as necessary.

f. As appropriate, inject periodic reminders of the adjournment target.

g. Do not hesitate to remind Directors of the agenda, should they want to leapfrog items.

h. Do not tolerate extraneous matters -- you've adopted an agenda, so stick to it.

i. Do not tolerate interruptions from visitors.

j. Always keep a positive attitude and insist on courtesy from all participants. Disagree without being disagreeable.

6. As experience dictates:

a. Consider adopting specific rules setting time limits on individual comments and the number of time an individual may speak on a subject.

b. Consider consulting a professional Parliamentarian for Board meetings and always for Annual meetings

(Parliamentarian Associates, 1-800-572-8328).

Always remember that the Board of Directors is conducting the operation of a multi-thousand or multi-million dollar business, depending on your complex's size, and keep your focus on the future.

Use a newsletter, or alternatively, meeting minutes distributed to all, to generously communicate information about Board business -- including financial summaries.