Trina Machacek: Anatomy of a meeting

In your lifetime how many meetings have you gone to? Meetings are attended from the time you can volunteer. That could be as young as grade school. Meetings become more semi-important in high school. Clubs, student council, sports. Next up would be meetings at work.

Would they come under the umbrella of most important? Maybe. But there are non-work-related meetings too. If you are a member of a lodge, or a church, or even a weekly card or game club, those meetings may be important but just somewhat important so they may also fall under the fun meeting category.

But! Yes, a late to a meeting “but.” There are still some meetings we go to that are scheduled and planned and about some government agency doing something that will affect you, your family, your livelihood or community.

Just for fun I would like to dissect a meeting I attended some time ago. You know because we all have more to say after one of these governmental, informative, tell it like it is but don’t make any sense meetings. Was it informative? Well on first examination, yes it was informative. Was it well planned? As well planned as the presenter could get it with colorful slides and some handouts with numbers and pictures and charts. Was it well attended? I think so thanks to good newspaper and some social media advertising about the subject, time and place.

It’s always a better meeting when the topic is about something of interest to those who attend. Was it long enough but not so long that people started to fidget and yawn? Yes, on the fidgeting, but there were a few yawns. All in all, it was your basic regular meeting. I find the real meeting begins when the guy holding the meeting stops and the people in the audience start to compare notes. Then the party starts, right?

The meetings I have gone to have to do with happenings in our area. Something to get ready for. I made a few connections after the meeting as did most of the attendees I talked to. The poor guy who held this one meeting, even though he had been doing the same job he came to talk about since the 1970s, was given about a “D” as a grade. That is sad really.

A meeting is to inform and plan and execute to the best outcome. This meeting was more of the same, no people to carry out a plan, no money to carry out a plan, and no real information about how to attack the problem. Mostly because the problem was something we, as humans, have no idea how to fix. It’s too big, even for the government.

Oh, the presenter gave a good showing of what was done in the past. Mostly when push came to shove the indirect direct answer the audience was left with was, “You’re on your own. But feel free to call me and tell me how it’s going.” But a slot was filled, and a meeting was held, and the public was given information. That is the general purpose of meetings.

Then as in many cases that you, I and the guy down the road can probably attest to, we take the bull by the horn and do what we know and can do to overcome or just live with some problem. A problem is usually why a meeting is called – a problem to fix. But do meetings really “fix” anything?

I certainly hope that in some circles, problems are solved in meetings. I can tell you in some meetings I go to, after about 90 minutes of listening to the presenter present the problem, a problem we all already knew was a problem, the crowd talked among themselves, and it was half-heartedly decided that the problem is indeed a problem. Has been a problem for a very long time, will be a problem for a lot longer. Frustrating, but oh so true. Some things, especially when it involves nature, some things we humans just have to live through.

What I find interesting is that within a gathering, group or audience there is always, yes always, three types of attendees. One that knows the topic, grumbles and wants to have someone fix the problem because it affects them the most.

One that will sit and stare into space and at the end agree with the whole presentation and how interesting and good it was. But in reality, has no idea what just happened. And a third that came for the donuts and is sorely disappointed that no donuts were served.

It’s like church. There is a problem, a book of answers and then there is singing. Donuts and singing. Let’s meet, sing and eat donuts. Who’s in?

Trina Machacek lives in Diamond Valley north of Eureka. Email itybytrina@yahoo.com.