1. Name tags for everyone, every meeting, with their name large enough to read. It’s embarrassing to have seen people at several meetings and admit you don’t know their names.

2. Post an acronym chart. Make a poster of frequently used external and internal acronyms (such as CRPD – Community Research and Project Development) and post it on the wall of every meeting.

3. Write an “anticipated action” for each agenda item. Examples: “Finance Committee report, brief questions and answers: no action needed.”  ” Policy Committee: Anticipated Action: approve policy changes.”

4. Mention each person’s name at least once at every meeting. “Lisa, you just made a good point about finances. “

5. Limit reports. If you have a regular report on the agenda, be sure it needs a response from the participants. If not, put it in writing in the packet and ask if there are any questions.

6. Don’t include committee reports on the agenda just to make the committees feel good. Schedule committee reports in the context of the main discussion. For example, if there is a discussion planned on attracting staff, reports from the Finance Committee and the Personnel Committee may be needed.

7. Encourage “dumb” questions, respectful dissent, authentic disagreements. “Duane, I appreciate the fact that you disagreed with me in that last discussion. You brought out some interesting points.”

8. Periodically, do something fun at a meeting. Celebrate success by serving sparking water in Champagne glasses.

9. If a meeting isn’t necessary, cancel it!

10.  Survey participants about meetings. Have people answer anonymously, “What do you like best about our meetings? Least?” “How could we improve our meetings?”