Friday Five: Meetings, Meetings

Reverend Mother has the RevGalBlogPals Friday Five this week:

In honor of a couple of marathon meetings I attended this week: 1. What's your view of meetings? Choose one or more, or make up your own: a) When they're good, they're good. I love the feeling of people working well together on a common goal. b) I don't seek them out, but I recognize them as a necessary part of life. c) The only good meeting is a canceled meeting.

c) The only good meeting is a canceled meeting. Usually, I find meetings to be boring and usually fully of lots of items that don't need to be discussed, or will be discussed and nothing will be done about them after the meeting is over. I have been at only a couple meetings where I feel that items addressed will be completed, worked on, or even touched. Most meetings they are left alone until the next meeting arrives.

2. Do you like some amount of community building or conversation, or are you all business?
I prefer building a community. Getting to know each other makes the day or days more enjoyable.

3. How do you feel about leading meetings? Share any particular strengths or weaknesses you have in this area.
I would much rather lead a meeting. If you ask any of my friends or family that I do well at following directions (if the directions are clear and make sense) but I excel at taking control and working on getting things done. I have no problem delegating or working with others in a leadership capacity to get things accomplished.

4. Have you ever participated in a virtual meeting? (conference call, IM, chat, etc.) What do you think of this format?

5. Share a story of a memorable meeting you attended.
I loved attending meetings at the Lutheran Student Center. I was a member on the student board for a year. The leader was our minister (he later married my husband and I). Each meeting was meant to get to know the other people, work on making things better for the college students that attended church and strive to make LSC a better campus ministry. Each meeting left me a bit more excited for what I could do and made me want more.