Friday Five: Meetings, Meetings...

This is my first Friday Five in quite awhile. I've been stuck in meetings! (Okay, not really. But that would have been a very timely excuse, no?)

ReverendMother writes, 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.
I'm going to chicken out and say that I really could say any of the three, depending on the meeting. I like to get things done, so the meetings that irritate me are the ones where we spend most of the time socializing or discussing way-off-topic stuff. Or where one person (unless it's me, of course, in all my brilliance) dominates the whole thing. If I had to choose one of the above, I'm probably consistently a 'b'.

2. Do you like some amount of community building or conversation, or are you all business?
Sort of answered this one above. I like to socialize, but my preference is to get the work done first and then have the option of hanging around. Some of us want to go home. On the other hand, especially in a new group, you need a certain amount of community building included in order for people to trust one another. So, I guess I like purposeful socializing. I dislike a lot of distract-y gossiping.

3. How do you feel about leading meetings? Share any particular strengths or weaknesses you have in this area.
I like leading meetings because I can get things done. (Can you sense a theme here?) I suppose that my business-like demeanor could be a weakness as well. Maybe. I'm not convinced of this. I think the church generally needs a kick in the butt more than it needs another easy-going committee member. Or my church does, anyway.

4. Have you ever participated in a virtual meeting? (conference call, IM, chat, etc.) What do you think of this format? Conference call. Not a fan. I know it's a necessary evil, but I really miss the body-language bit. I'd rather do email or IM than a conference call, but I'm no giant fan of those either. Nothing replaces the in-person experience.

5. Share a story of a memorable meeting you attended.
Okay, none of my answers above were all that interesting; in fact, I stayed in this particular Friday Five just to be able to answer this one. This is in my top-five favorite moments of ministry, this meeting. And it has everything to do with the lovely image below. Thanks, despair.com.

So we were starting our capital campaign to retire the mortgage. We needed to raise about $320,000 (we can have a separate discussion about why retiring your mortgage is or is not a good idea, but suffice it to say that it wasn't really my choice to make at the time). One of the early steps in the process is to establish an "Advance Gifts" committee, which solicits large or significant gifts before the official kick-off of the campaign, basically so you can announce all this success on the very first day. Sort of like making a list of all the things you have to do this weekend and starting with two or three things you've already done, so you can cross them off and feel good about yourself before you begin (this is a hint from my mother, and it really works).

On this committee were a bunch of guys in the congregation I hardly knew. I knew many of their wives better, and some of their kids. Several were professionals (doctors, lawyers, architects) and several were retired. About a dozen in all. And we had our first meeting with - as he shall be called - Consultant Guy, on a Monday evening. Consultant Guy was one of those particularly smug, slick money-raisers who's probably pretty successful at it, but who makes you want to take a quick shower after spending any amount of time with him. (Fortunately he was only our auxiliary guy and we only had this one meeting with him.)

There's a much longer story behind my previous interactions with Consultant Guy, but that's really for another time. Nothing terrible or inappropriate, just...you know. Icky. So imagine the slickest guy you know and - bing! That's this guy. Consultant Guy wanted to break the ice by having everyone introduce themselves and then tell us what we were doing at 10:00 this morning. "Won't this be fun," he suggests in his peculiarly slimy/jolly manner.

Everyone obliges and we go around the room: someone was mowing the lawn, someone was working, someone was in traffic, someone was on the phone. Etc. Until we get to a man whose family I knew quite well, but who, as an individual, I had spend virtually no time with. This man is a doctor. And he is also the kind of person (as I discovered) who has a very astute slick-detector. He could see right through Consultant Guy. Here is what followed.

Doctor: So you want to know what we were doing at 10:00 this morning?
CG: Yes, that would be great (insert slick chuckle here).
Doctor: Are you sure about that?
CG: (with increased chuckle) Why, yes! Certainly. Of course.
Doctor: Well, I had my head up some guy's ass.

LONG PAUSE.

Then, RAUCOUS LAUGHTER. I thought I was going to bust an internal organ. Doctor continued, "Because I was doing a colonoscopy." More laughter. "So," he continues, "seriously. Up his ass."

Consultant Guy was summarily deflated. And this is still my favorite meeting of all time.