The Meeting Mentoring Program will help you establish a new brand of meetings and elevate your shared decision-making standards. Through on-going professional support, the program will help you in:

Shifting your meetings away from: A reactive focus in meeting agendas Dominated, poorly focused, inefficient debates Advancing narrow interests Political, short-sighted, risk-prone decisions An adversarial climate ("combat zone") Predictable outcomes "inside the box" Rules of order wasting time, impeding progress

Shifting your meetings towards: A proactive and strategic focus in agendas Balanced, clear, ROI-driven debates Advancing broad community interests Principle-based decision making A collaborative climate ("construction zone") Smart & creative outcomes "outside the box" Rules of order used sensibly & intelligently

Who This Program is Suitable For

The Meeting Mentoring Program is geared to assist some or all of the following officers:

• Senior administrative officers (CEO, Municipal Clerk, Secretary-Treasurer, others)
• Senior elected officials (Mayor, Board Chair)

A Basic Retainer (proposed base-total: 60 hours a year)

The Meeting Mentoring Program consists of monthly consultations to review progress and set new meeting and decision-making targets, as well as ad-hoc consultations about new issues and challenges. The basic retainer is likely to focus on the following goals:

• Making meeting agendas more proactive and strategically driven
• Improving the allocation of time in meetings (for a better ROI)
• Structuring logically-flowing debates on complex or controversial issues
• Writing resolutions and preparing decision-making options
• Dealing effectively with organizational disputes and dysfunctions
• Preventing costly procedural errors.
• Using rules of order sensibly and intelligently

An Expanded Retainer (hours set in consultation with the client)

Optional areas that can be addressed in an expanded retainer include:

• Community consultation and stakeholder involvement processes.
• Advice on Procedure bylaw & policy documents (Conflict of Interest, Confidentiality, Ethics).
• "Quick reference procedural guides" for meeting participants.
• Committee structure, mandates, allocation of decision-making powers.
• Preparing for a contentious meeting or public hearing.
• Preparing for a challenging presentation or media interview.