Business English - The Language Of Meetings

1. Course Introduction: Thank you very much for taking this Business English, the Language of Meetings course. So the way this course is organized is it follows the chronological steps of a meeting. So it starts with things happen before the Meeting, how to start the Meeting, weapons during the Meeting, the things that happen after the Meeting. And in all of these lessons, the main focus is on vocabulary and a little bit, little bit of grammar, but mainly vocabulary. So we look at lots of different ways of expressing things, of asking things in formal and informal situations. So if you ever get stuck for something to say in a meeting or you don't know how to express yourself. This is the course for you. For each lesson, there's a downloadable PDF resource that you can use with the presentation that was used during the lesson. Please use the Q&A. If you have any questions or anything is unclear and you will get an answer within a day or two. But hope you enjoy the course. I welcome any and all feedback on the course. My aim is to make it better if necessary. So let me know what you think. If you think something is missing, I'll add to it, even making new lessons if you needed. Let you get diving into the course. I hope you find it informative and interesting. 2. Before the Meeting - Introduction: In this first section, we lay the groundwork for Meetings Structures. We look at the different types of Meetings. We look at sort of in-person online offline Hybrid. We look at how that can affect the way the Meeting runs, in the way it works. And we look at some things to consider. We look at the roles of the participants. We look at who is responsible for what and who does what when. A lot of this is really groundwork before the meeting actually starts. So if you're really only interested in the vocabulary, you absolutely know for sure how meetings work. Feel free to skip this section. You might find it just tells you stuff you already know. However, it might also give you a few insights that you didn't think of. As I say, it's up to you. This is more groundwork. So as usual, please use the Q&A if anything is unclear or to add your own comments and thoughts 3. Meeting Roles: Welcome to this short lesson, which looks at the different roles within meetings. These are the terms that you'll see being used again and again and again in the rest of this course. And South thought it was a good idea just to list them out once and for all so that all clear for everybody. These are the chair or facilitator, minute taker. And of course, participants will look at each of these in turn briefly. This is what in the olden days you to be called the Chairman and then sometimes chairwoman. These days, we tend to use a gender neutral term and it's simply called the chair. Or depending where you are, it might be called the facilitator, might even be called the leader. You could argue that the chair is one of the more important people in the Meeting. Depending on the company. Some of the chair functions might be assigned to other people, such as timekeeper and gatekeeper. In short, the chair has to start the Meeting. Keep everyone on track. The function of a timekeeper and a gatekeeper. For the timekeeper, make sure that people don't go on too long. The gatekeeper make sure they stick to the topic. Give everyone the chance to contribute. A would be called to make decisions. They will assign further actions that will set the date and time of the next Meeting and even possibly the location, and they will end the meeting. The other important role is that of taking the minutes. And it's often a role that nobody really wants. If we're honest. Again, it might be called the scribe or the recorder. As we said, it is also an important role in the meeting. One of the main things that this does is it enables the other participants to concentrate on the Meeting and not on their own note-taking. Although of course they can take notes if they want to. And in an ideal world, the recorder, the person taking the minutes, we'll have some knowledge of what the meeting is about and what the people are talking about. In short, the scribe has to stay alert for the whole Meeting. Summarize the points accurately. Provide a written account of the meeting. After note further actions and next steps as in who, what and when. So who has to do what by when? They have to distribute the minutes promptly after the Meeting. And the last group of people is of course, the participants and the Meeting. We're not really be complete or make much sense without participants. But here's what participants are expected to do. Respect to, to keep quiet and listen to the presenter or the person talking. How does it might be? Try and stay awake. Keep off the phone, and give opinions when asked or when you think it makes sense to give your opinion. Okay, so participate in other words, so that's the three roles. Very quickly. We use these names all the way through the course. So now you know what they do. 4. In Person, Virtual, Hybrid: Welcome to this lesson on the various types of Meetings in Person. Virtual Hybrid. Used to be that all meetings were conducted in-person. All of the participants are physically present in the same room. And necessarily so. But due to improvements in technology and unfortunately pandemic requirements, this has all changed. There are now several different ways to hold meetings. And these are, as we said, in-person meetings can have virtual meetings, or we can have a hybrid of the two. And each of them has their own advantages, disadvantages and things that we need to consider. And we'll look at all of these now. No matter what type of Meeting you will be attending, there are several things that you should always do. And these are to arrive on time, generally no more than 5 min early. If you arrive too early, then you're just wasting time. You should read the Agenda. Related to that, you should come prepared. The other thing you should do is ignore your phone. Ideally, switch the **** thing off. In-person meetings. So this is the classic traditional way of holding meetings, where everybody is in the same room and physically present in the same room. You can see the wall and you can ask people a question just by looking at them. So you can look to someone and say, What do you think? And they know, because they can see you that you're looking at them. You can take handouts and distribute them to people. But everyone does actually have to physically be there. And another perhaps constraint. The number of attendees is actually limited to the size of the Meeting Room. So you want people to be able to sit comfortably and not be standing around the walls, leaning on the corners and so on. That's not a good idea. Then we have virtual meetings, especially due to pandemic requirements. Virtual meetings have now become quite common. For this, participants remotely access the meeting via software such as Zoom or Teams. And there's a host of others. In these virtual meetings is not possible to handout thing. So participants, because they're not there. So you have to make sure that the Agenda is e-mailed to the people a few days before the Meeting. And you have to email resources beforehand or, and or make them available online. They can still do this for in-person meetings, but you have to do this for virtual meetings. The other thing that is strange about virtual meetings is that you have to get used to a different way of communicating with people in an in-person meeting, he can look at someone and talk to them. Awesome question. But in virtual meetings you just see the grid of people on the screen and you can be looking at them, but they don't know you're looking at them. And so you have to get used to asking people by name. And this is maybe somebody have to get used to. It's a bit weird at first because they don't know where you're looking. And if you just look at someone, say What do you think? Everyone thinks they might mean them? So you have to say, specifically, Bob, what do you think, Suzy, What's your opinion, and so on. Get used to naming people with virtual meetings. Because it's more technology-based, we have to make sure everything is working beforehand. And by this mean, things like WiFi, your camera, the microphone. And he's software is up to date and working. And any devices or using have a decent amount of battery. So you don't want, for instance, a software update in the middle of a meeting. Similarly, you don't want your device is dying because the batteries were flat. This is not what you want. Hybrid meetings, as you might guess, combine in-person and virtual meetings. Some of the participants are actually physically present in the same room and others will access the meeting remotely. There's a few things you need to think about. So for instance, the remote participants should be able to see the people in the Meeting Room. And similarly, the people in the Meeting Room should be able to see the remote participants. And this is usually done via some sort of large screen at the end of the Meeting Room. This last thing to do with virtual and hybrid meetings is very important. Ok. You wouldn't turn up to a meeting, a physical in-person meeting with no trousers on. Don't do this. Virtual or hybrid meetings. I have seen things. Okay. You think you're gonna be sitting there and people can only see you from the shoulders up. And then something happens, a doorbell rings or your dog or cat knocks your coffee over or something and you stand up to go and deal with it. And everyone can see exactly what your underpants look like. That's the best scenario. So please take these meetings seriously and turn up as if you were going to another proper in-person meeting. Good tip for you. There 5. Reasons for Meetings: Welcome to this lesson on reasons for holding meetings. There's no point in holding a meeting. Purely to have a meeting. That makes no sense. You have to have a reason or a purpose for the meeting. And the common ones that you would often see at work are to provide or share information for feedback or discussion, to make some decision about something, to brainstorm or generate new ideas to solve a problem. And we'll look at each of these a bit more detail in turn now, sharing or providing information. So a good standard example of this is a good old department meeting. These meetings are usually held to inform the department members about stuff. And depending on the situation, this stuff might be current sales figures, staff information, for instance, promotions, birth, these whatever. Company events, say Christmas party, the summer barbecue, whatever. It might be, new company policies and strategies that people need to know about. And could well be project reports, the things going on within the department themselves. Feedback and discussion meetings. So these might follow on from an information meeting. So for instance, if a company has decided on new policy, management, probably don't care what the staff think, but the people will tell them anyway. However, the intended scenario is often when someone has an idea about something and is looking for feedback. And you might also see this fall under the name of market research. Making decisions. As an example here, some decision needs to be made between several options. And the manager or project leader or whoever might call a meeting to discuss the various pros and cons of all the options. And the participants in the meeting will be expected to contribute to the pros and cons. So they don't just sit there silently absorbing everything. But these participants will not make the final decision that still rests with the manager, project leader, whoever called the Meeting. And in this particular case, it's not necessary to reach a consensus. There is no agreement required. You can finish it and have a different opinion than everyone around you. And that's perfectly legitimate and okay. Brainstorming. Too often. In brainstorming, there's no specific problem that you need to solve. There may be some vague requirement, but nothing really definite. So the participants carry out what sometimes called blue-sky thinking. And there are no silly ideas. And everyone can and should contribute. In the ideal world, someone will say something and that causes a spark in someone else or you. And they are, you can add to the discussion. And that causes someone to have a thought. And you end up somewhere just really hashing out ideas. And then you will often need a separate meeting afterwards to actually decide on the merits of these ideas. And some people will love these brainstorming meetings. Other people lose them. You know which one you are. Let me have problem-solving meetings. In contrast to brainstorming that we just looked at. Here, we're actually trying to solve a specific problem. So in the technical environment, you might have a customer reporting a serious bug. And this needs to be fixed as soon as possible. On a commercial setting, you might be trying to find ways to increase revenue following your poor quarter. And as with brainstorming, all the participants are expected to participate 6. Types of Meeting: Welcome to this lesson on various different types of Meeting. There really many, many types of Meeting. And we'll look at some of the more common ones in this lesson. And these will be kickoff meetings, progress or status meetings, one-on-one meetings, team meetings, department meetings, company meetings, and training meetings. And we'll look at each of these in turn. Now. Kickoff meetings, these are a special types of Meeting that are specifically for the official start of a project. And everybody who was involved in the project is required to attend. And during the Meeting, the project details are described, usually by the project leader. The different roles of the various people within that project roles are communicated. Project milestones and deadlines are also stated. That the exact details will vary from company to company and project to project. However, at the end of the meeting, everybody should know what the project is about and what their role is in the project. As well as who have important roles such as project leader, technical project leader, and so on. Progress or status meetings. These are sometimes called stand-up meetings, daily scrums, all sorts of different names for this. And the idea here is everyone takes it in turn to say what they're doing. And they should be short and to the point. And for many people, the ideal length is zero. These are only effective in project teams and small departments. One of the reasons they're called stand-up meetings is because people literally stand up. They don't take the time to sit down because the meeting should be finished before It's really started. There's a large amount of debate about whether these Meetings That actually makes sense or not. Again, a lot of people think they're pointless. We have one-to-one meetings. This is, as it were, the, the the Meeting with the lowest number of participants. These are different from other meetings as I really only two people. So you have the attention of the other person. And it is uncommon for both be talking at the same time. Now, what sort of things we haven't one-on-one meetings is could include annual performance review with your boss. It could be a job interview. You could be holding discussions with the supplier or customer, or it could be shot sort of ad hoc meetings with a colleague. By that, I mean, you've got some problem is can we just went just meet up now for 10 min and just clear it up and that sort of thing. We have team meetings. The team meetings usually held weekly and the whole of the project team is expected to attend. And the project manager will usually chair the meeting. You should know everyone in the team. I mean, you were at the kickoff, won't you? These meetings are usually fairly relaxed. Plus the project nears completion, stress levels might change this. You may find depending on the scope and the company etc. that you may find management or higher management may also attend team meetings just to get an idea of what's going on. We have department meetings. These are typically, say, information given meetings and typically held once a month. And usually the department manager would inform staff about any department relevant information. Project leaders could give status reports. Again, you generally know everyone involved. And usually these are quite informal meetings. The main reason people dislike these type of meetings is that they take place even when there's nothing to communicate. So often seen as a huge unnecessary time sync. We have company meetings, sometimes called staff meetings. And depending on the company, this could be voluntary or mandatory. You could attend, you might have to attend. And there's no rule to these. They can be monthly, they can be quarterly or even annually once a year. These are commonly informative meetings with information flowing from the management to the staff. At the end, there may be time for questions from the staff. And depending on the company and the managers, these meetings can range widely from interesting and informative to solve crushingly boring. I know I've been at both extremes. Then we have training meetings to training is still considered a meeting. Information is passed on and participants can ask questions. And there are several different types of training meetings. And these would include one-on-one training for new colleagues. Training on new tools and software might have external training for a specific project requirement. And if the company is big enough, health and safety and data protection training for the whole company. Again, a huge drag and a time sink 7. Arranging Meetings: Welcome to this lesson on arranging Meetings. So who does what? And when. This lesson, we'll look at what needs to be done when arranging or organizing a meeting. With the word meeting, you will find many collocations and vocabulary, and we'll have a quick look at those as well. The actions are here are generally usually the responsibility of the chair. And we concern ourselves with the W. So why, who, where, when, and what. I'm will look all of these in turn. Quick look at some meeting vocabulary. So collocations. Collocations are combinations of words that occur more commonly than you would expect based on random chance. So here's some common ones to sit here. Was Peter's turn to chair the meeting. He was one organising it. We need to hold a meeting to sort out the problems. Again, you'll see the actual co-location with Meeting is in bold and italic, so it should be easy to spot. I'm on holiday on Monday. Can we reschedule the meeting? Are you going to attend the meeting tomorrow? That was getting late, so we decided to end the meeting. Everyone was absent. So the boss decided to call off or cancel the Meeting. Can we put the Meeting off until next week? That was it for cholera cases and Vocabulary. Also, phrasal verbs you'll find being used. And here are a few useful phrasal verbs by all means, not all of them. And there's a quick recap of phrasal verb is a verb and a so-called participle, which is usually a preposition. And they go together to form one block. And the problem with phrasal verbs, as they can have different meanings for the same phrasal verb and logic goes completely out of the window. The good news about phrasal verbs is there still verbs, so everything you know about verbs applies to phrasal verbs. We have a look at some examples. The team needs to get together to discuss the database model. As with the previous slide, the phrasal verb is in bold and italicized. You have to clear up the details before the end of the week, or we have to thrash out the details before the end of the week. The lawyers will draw up the contract for the customer meeting. Was create the contract. We need a meeting to attend to some customer concerns. If you attend to something in this case, you deal with it. It's a short meeting. We'll wrap it up within 30 min. In this case, wrap up doesn't mean a present. It means to conclude the meeting. Friday's meeting will be brought forward to choose PSD. So it'll be earlier than you think. Arranging Meetings. The question of why, why do we need this meeting should be easy to state. Okay, a few examples here. To review our budget for something or to discuss our response to something, Customer Complaint, maybe to establish our procedure for whatever we want to establish a procedure for or to prepare for the conference on oversees all clearly stated reasons for why we need a meeting. And to be honest, if you can easily answer this question, is the Meeting really necessary? The WHO? Once you know why you need the Meeting, the next step is to decide who needs to be there. And depending on the meeting, this will either be really obvious and easy or it could be more complicated. And as an example of an easy one, team meetings usually only need the team members to be there. We have the where. So you know, how many people who are attending and you also know where they are. And if there'll be remotely joining or in-person. This should give you a rough idea of the size of the room you need and a location that suits everyone, obviously as well. If there's poeple remotely joining, you need some sort of technical equipment to enable that. You have to work out the when, to need to find the time that suits every body. Usually you've got some sort of on our tool within the company that you can see the availability of or colleagues. You can see when they have meetings booked and have holidays. You can see this usually with some sort of Meeting software. But if there are external participants, you might need to ask for their availability and ideally get three alternatives. For team or department meetings. He's usually on a regular basis anyway, so everyone knows when there'll be what do we know who is coming, when you know where and when the meeting will take place. This should help to decide on what you need. So if there are Virtual participants, you will need equipment for this. You might also need a projector, screen, flip charts, marker pens, etcetera, etcetera. If the Meeting is not a short one, you might also need refreshments. Maybe it's some water, some Jews or coffee. Somebody to nibble on depends how long it is. The organizer. This is, these are all things that you will need to sort out. Having sorted out the why, the WHO, and the when, we need to formalize the details. This is usually done via email. So you can create a meeting and at the participants. So colleagues internally and external people. If people are accessing the meeting remotely, you can add useful information. So URLs, links for accessing the Meeting. So the email client will then send out invitations and then the participants can then accept or reject the invitation. You can also cancel or reschedule meetings using email client. And you can also see who's accepted. The last thing we need to do is to create and distribute or circulate the Agenda. And this is a topic for the next lesson. 8. Writing the Agenda: Welcome to this next lesson on writing the Agenda. Here we look at what needs to be done. Been you're involved with writing an agenda. This is generally carried out by the organizer or chair of the meeting. If you have the Agenda and advance, you can add it when you send out the invitation. Otherwise, you'll have to distributed separately. Ideally, participants should receive the Agenda three or four days before the Meeting. So this gives them time to prepare for it and to look through it so far in advance that they forget about it. It doesn't get lost in the rest of the stuff going on. Firstly, what is an agenda and why do we need one? An agenda is a list of topics and talking points, actions, and goals for a meeting. There could also be time indications to help speakers to know how long they've got. Again, depending on your organization, your templates, you may have some a highly detailed and others are just a list of bullet points. So the Agenda helps participants to prepare for the meeting by using rough times. You have an idea how long it will take. And also makes sure you don't forget anything during the Meeting. So you can tick off all the points as you go through them. And so here's the points you would include in an agenda. And again, it's very difficult here to give us a vanilla. One size fits all agenda because it will depend on the type of Meeting. And they're all different. We can't just say here's an agenda that suits everybody. However, we can make generalizations that can be adapted to the specific requirement. And nearly all agendas will have the date, the time and location of the meeting. You will have a list of invited people. They will have the objectives of the meeting. You will have a welcome and introductions part. You will list the topics with purpose as purpose leaving timing. So the point of the topic, who is involved with the topic, that's the lead. And the timing will be roughly how long we have four, it will then have some sort of summary, stroke review and the end you usually have AOB, which stands for any other business 9. Start the Meeting - Introduction: In this next section, we looked at the things that happen at the start of a meeting. We look at who starts a meeting, how they do it, other things that need to happen right at the beginning. We also look at things on a more interpersonal level. So there's two quite important lessons on this, namely the one on small Talk, which is very sort of informal chatting at the beginning of a meeting while everyone is turning up. And very important lesson on informal and formal nature of Meetings and how you should behave and not behave, and how your understanding of whether it's a formal, informal meeting and the culture and traditions and expectations of the other people can change the way you speak, the way you behave. As usual. Any questions or comments, please use Q&A, and I hope you find this section interesting 10. Chairing the Meeting: Welcome to this lecture about chairing the meeting and what it means I have to chair a meeting. So as the Meetings chair, you will have several duties and responsibilities. And these generally include opening the Meeting, doing the introductions, keeping the Meeting on-point and on-time, allowing everyone to participate and to summarize and conclude the meeting. So the first thing you need to do is to call the meeting to order. So ideally the participants will have arrived on time. You introduce herself as the chair. You state the purpose of the meeting. You set the timeframe of the meeting. You also decide who is going to take notes for the meeting. And if this is part of a series, then the minutes of the previous meeting, often the first thing that you do This meeting, so you accept the minutes of the previous meeting. Does everyone know each other? For local meetings such as team meetings, department meetings and so on, people would generally know each other. But even then, that could still be maybe new members who might not know everyone. Another meetings with more diverse participants will almost certainly be the case that not everybody knows everybody else. And if this is the case, you will need to introduce the participants to the other members of the Meeting. So when you open the meeting, you gave an indication of the timeframe. You need to make sure that people stick to your time plan. Now, depending on the organization, there might be, I'm someone who is especially there to do just this. And in addition to the chair. And if someone has a tendency to waffle into ramble, you need to make sure that they keep it short and keep to the topic of discussion. It says what we mean by guiding. We have participation. Generally there are two different situations here. We have people who are too quiet and those who tend to dominate the chair. It's up to you to encourage shy people to participate. And also you'll need to tactfully prevent other people from taking over. And similarly, if someone has a tendency to interrupt, you will need to keep them in check and allow others to speak. Last thing we do it to conclude the meeting. So at the end of the Meeting, there are a few actions that are needed. So we summarize the Meeting and any decisions that were made during the Meeting. We've made sure that people who have action points are clear about what they're expected to do. So with action points, it's been the next meeting. Your job is to look at this or to do this and people are assigned actions. You also need to arrange a time and a place for next meeting if there is unfinished business. So when it comes to chairing a meeting, we will look at these topics in more details in subsequent lessons. And during those lessons will also give you vocabulary for the points we've mentioned here. 11. Minutes and Notes: Welcome to this next lesson on minutes and Notes. Minutes and Notes are similar and generally serve the same purpose. If you really want to find a difference, you could say that Minutes tend to be more formal, whereas Notes tend to be more informal. And anyone who's attending the meeting, as Of course, welcome to make their own notes. But there will only be one sort of official scribe as the minutes are note-taker. And from here on, I'll just refer to both as minutes. You might also see Minutes of Meeting, abbreviated MOM. The most organizations will have templates for Meetings. And there are several things that are common to all, all minutes. But firstly, why bother? Writing minutes takes time and efforts and he likes to do this job. So why bother? There are several reasons why we bother. And the first one is your memory might fail. But the meat minutes, Won't. They provide a written record of what was actually agreed at the Meeting? I also provide a record of what people need to do so they can't complain later and say, Oh, I didn't know I had to do it in a you are there. You will give an action point is in the meat in the minutes. You know. They can also remind people about what was said during the Meeting. And depending on the organization, may also be legal requirements about why you need minutes and in what form they should be. I think that's beyond the scope of this course. Some common elements that you will find in all minutes. There will generally include the time and date of the Meeting, the names of the participants, including the absentees or those people who couldn't make it for whatever reason. There'll be the purpose of the Meeting, why we're having it. There will be the list of agenda items and the topics that were discussed. There'll be Notes of any decisions made during the Meeting. If any important documents were used during the Meeting, the minutes should have links to those so people know where to find them, if any, to look at them later. Also, any action points together with who was assigned the action point and a target date when they have to complete it by. And very often the time and place over the next meeting. A few tips if you're the one taking the notes for the minutes. So firstly, there is no need for a verbatim report. We just focus on the key items. If it helps you use something to record the whole meeting, you can use a smartphone, you can use a recording, any recording device, and use that if you need to refer back to it later. If anything is unclear during the Meeting. Please ask for clarification. Okay. Don't be shy on this because you need to report on it, so you need to understand it. And if it's easier, use some sort of template and just fill in the blanks. But more on this in a later lesson may actually look at writing minutes 12. Small Talk: Welcome to this lesson on small Talk. So some people are natural that this, another people need to learn this skill. So small Talk is basically light casual conversation. Not everybody will arrive at the same time. And small Talk is often used to bridge the gap, why we're waiting for the other attendees. And because it's a bit kinda silly if you arrive early and you will just sit there in silence staring at your shoes or something. That's not a good idea. And we often use small Talk if we're talking to someone we don't know very well. Again, small Talk conserve to break the ice and reduce nerves. And the other thing is you can find common ground with the other person. There's also a good thing if you're in a meeting with someone with small Talk, listening is just as important as speaking. As we'll see there are good and bad subjects for small Talk. If we're in a meeting, allow five-minutes or so for small Talk, sort of at the beginning whilst everyone is arriving. And when the last person is there, we don't need to stop the small Talk in. Let it go on for bit longer. Listening, as we said, is just as important as speaking. And it's important to note that small Talk is a dialogue, not a lecture. Ideally, you would ask open-ended questions and listen to the answers and react appropriately to what they say. Of course, based on their answers, you can then ask follow-up questions. And this keeps the conversation flowing. And you need to show an interest in the other person and the things they say. Most importantly, put away your phone, please. Certain topics are really not good for small Talk or we should avoid them. These include but unrestricted. So there are other topics in addition to these, but generally speaking, you would avoid talking about politics and religion. Hey, these are the main two. You might also like to avoid. Health and diet. Might avoid physical appearance. You really didn't talk about salary and money. For small Talk with someone you don't know, you probably avoid sort of 18 plus crude jokes. And you also don't want to get involved with ****** gossip. That really doesn't make you look good. So what are some good topics for small Talk? We could talk about the whether that's always good. Travel, accommodation, your background, their background. Talk about hobbies. Talk about things that maybe on the TV or films or generally entertainment, and of course, food and drink. So I think we should look at some examples of typical small Talk openers whilst you're waiting for the meeting to start. Some of these you might think are silly, but they work. So we'll just go through them. You might say, well, it's quite warm or cold for this type of time of view, isn't it? Or would you like coffee? If you're going over to grab a coffee, they'll come with you. Good opener. Or did you have a good trip here? If they've obviously if they're colleagues of yours, you know, they're in the building but they might not be. Or did you have far to travel? Or how's the accommodation? Is hotel nice? If you're someone who is from outside coming in, you might also maybe ask, could you recommend a good local restaurant? And that'll get you talking about the type of food you like and what you prefer, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. These are all just openers. The rest you have to take on as it naturally flows 13. Opening the Meeting: Welcome to this next lesson on opening the Meeting. So typical Languages and phrases. But officially the meeting starts when the chair calls a meeting to order. And the first thing you'll need to do is to welcome the attendees. You may also probably want to introduce yourself as well. If necessary, introduce other participants, so not everybody knows each other. You might want to remind people about time limits and state the aims of the Meeting, why we're here. Starting the Meeting. There are several formal expressions you could use to start the Meeting. And these could be, looks like everyone has arrived. I suggest for make a start. Good afternoon, everyone. Shall we start? Good morning, everyone. Or just a straight. Thank you all for attending this meeting. Or if you're in a more informal situation, you might say something like, for all here, let's get started. We get down to business. Thanks for coming. Let's make a start. And you'll notice with nearly all of these slides that the informal expressions were a lot shorter than the formal expressions. This is because an English politeness is sort of indirection. So the more indirection you have, the politeia you are. And if you're in a formal situation, you want to be polite. So you'll find the informal ones are fairly short and the formal ones are a bit longer. You want to introduce herself. So maybe formal expressions for introducing yourself would be good morning everyone or good afternoon everyone. My name is Peter and I'm project manager for this meeting or for this project. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Sandra and I'm again, you'd explain your role in the meeting or some informal expressions. Hello everyone, Jenny, here. Hi everyone. I'm Tom. Nice and short. Will also want to welcome the attendees. Again in a formal situation, you can say, please join me in welcoming Bob Jones. Or we are honored to have Jane Brown with us today. It is my pleasure to welcome Terry Adams today. You're in an informal situation. You would use slightly shorter expressions such as It's great to have Jane with us today. Thanks for coming today, Bob, join me in welcoming Amanda to the meeting. So you notice also with the informal ones, we just use their first names and maybe with a formal ones, we use the complete name. Also time limits, we need to remind people not to go on too long. Then a formal situation. To respect everyone's time, the meeting will be limited to 45 min or however long it'll take. I would like to keep this meeting to 1 h. I would appreciate it if we keep the contribution short so as to finish punctually. And a very formal ways of saying this, an informal situation. Okay, people, let's keep this down to 45 min. Or today's meeting should only take an hour. Let's keep it short. We all have other work to do. Good shot, informal expressions. They want to wet the aims of the Meeting. Formerly you might say, we're here to teach, to discuss whatever it is discussing. I've called this meeting today in order to purpose of the meeting or as you can see from the Agenda. And then we're here to discuss the budget. Other now, informally, you might say, we're here to talk about or I've asked all here today so we can sort out all here today to thrash out our response to whatever. The end fascia, outers bit more informal sort out is more informal even though it's slightly longer in this case. What about some idioms about starting meetings? So idioms or just, just to refresh, these are these expressions that you know each individual word. But the expression is a whole has another meaning that isn't immediately clear. Will have a look at them. Some idioms for starting meetings. Rule a busy today. So I'll get to the point straight away. And obviously the idiom here is in italicized, that you get to the point is to directly go where you want to go not to beat about the Bush, which brings us to the next one. Let's not beat about the verse or beat around the bush and make a start. If you beat about the bush or beat around the bush, you're not really doing what it's supposed to be doing. This meeting is to put you all in the picture about so he put someone in the picture, you inform them of something. So we're here to bring you up to speed on, again, to bring someone up to speed is to give them the latest information. And similarly, this project meeting has been called to keep you in the loop about whatever and keeping the loop as they keep people informed. And lastly, the bosses here to give them the news street from the horse's mouth and straight from the horse's mouth is sort of directly without anybody telling anyone to tell someone to tell someone. So it's from the source 14. The Agenda: Welcome to this lesson on the Agenda and specifically, keeping on track. It's worth keeping the Agenda visible during the Meeting. But this gives you an overview of your of your plans for the meeting. And also helps people to stay on topic. And it also helps them to stick to their allotted time. What about staying on topic? How do we do this? In a formal situation, we could use the following expressions. I'm afraid that is outside the scope of this meeting. I would suggest saving this discussion for another meeting. Or could we focus our attention on the topic, please? We seem to be losing sight of the main point here. These are all fairly formal ways of saying, no, not what we're talking about. Or informal situations might say, Let's get on back on track. Yeah. We're getting off topic. Anyway, as I was saying. Or getting back to the topic. Or even as a chair, you might say, that's not why we're here today. I just fairly bluntly stating we're here for something else. Similarly, we're staying on time. And a formal situation. You might say, nobody has anything else to add. The next topic is, or slightly more directly, we really should pick up the pace. And as we're starting to fall behind and an informal setting, we running short on time. Let's move on. We spent enough time on this topic 15. Formal and Informal, Cultural Considerations: Welcome to this next lesson titled formal and informal, or how you talk to other people. In this lesson, we'll briefly look at how you address people during a meeting. And this really will depend on many factors. But the three most important ones here are the local culture, the company culture, and the type of Meeting. And we'll look at all of these to see how they influence the way we talked to people at local culture first. Now, if we're really honest, this is such a huge, wide very topic. We can dedicate complete courses to how you would talk to every country on the planet could have their own lesson, okay, It's a very big topic, but we will try and make some general points here. You know your own culture. This is really more relevant for Meetings in foreign countries or with foreign visitors. And generally we can consider too rough questions. Will we be using first names or a more formal form of address? And secondly, will it be more casual clothing or more formal attire? So people generally on a first-name basis, or do we use a formal form of address? In the English-speaking world? First, names are used by almost everyone. Really are only a small number of exceptions to this. There's usually like the upper tiers of royalty and clergy for some reason. So, for instance, at the moment, the current king of England is Charles the third. You wouldn't walk up to and go, you Chaz, how is it? You wouldn't normally would use first-name terms. Now, there are other cultures. Another really the polar opposite of this and the form of address can be extremely formal. And this would include all academic titles and surnames. Please make sure you know how to address the other people. And if in doubt, if you're not sure, wait to see how they address you. And be more formal rather than less formal. Because let's look at the consequences. If you're too formal, they might just smile and asked you to use their firstName. Prefer to casual. You may end up causing unwanted offense and this is not what you want to do. And then we have the problem of clothing. So do people tend to wear casual clothing or more formal? Now, obviously we got a whole spectrum here between baggy shorts, Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops up to a suit and tie. You really have to make sure you know what is expected of you. And if in doubt, it's always better to go more cautious than less cautious. If you turn up dressed up to formally, you can always take off your jacket and tie, loosen the top button of your shirt and roll your sleeves up. Okay, that'll make you look a little bit less formal. But if everyone else is a very formal in a suit and tie, and you look like you've just come from the beach. There's really not a lot you can do. We have local culture as a very, very rough guide, international business tends to follow the British standard. By that, I mean, he wear a suit and tie and you use first names. However, please, I cannot emphasize this enough. Do yourself a huge favor and make sure that you check any local customers before the Meeting. This will then save you a lot of embarrassment and a lot of heartache. And if, for instance, if you're there to do a sales presentation for potential customers, you really don't want to annoy them or offend them, okay, you wanna be nice to them. Then we have the thing with corporate culture. In your company. Do you have a recognizable corporate culture? Again, this can vary greatly. There's no one size fits all. On the very casual end, everybody is on a first-name basis. And on the other end of the spectrum, people are addressed with full academic titles and surnames. And of course, most companies fall somewhere in-between. And there's somewhere in-between is usually informal up to a point. And then formal with upper management, exactly what level of upper management this starts to be formal will depend on the company. It also depends on the type of Meeting. So generally speaking, the closer you work with someone, the less formal you tend to be. Of course, this is also dependent on all the previous aspects we've already mentioned. For example, team meetings will probably be quite casual and Informal, but then job interviews would definitely be more formal. You need to use your knowledge of local customs, corporate culture, and a huge dollop of common sense. And decide how you're going to dress and behave for these meetings. To summarize this formal, informal question, it's a minefield. I'm aware of this. But if you use common sense, you should be okay. That find out what's expected of you. If you're not sure, go for more formal over less formal. And this is a real life example of how I'm not making this up. Do not do what my German colleague did. He got invited to attend a black tie event. And he said to me, What's a black tie event? So I said, Oh, it's an event where and the main wear a white shirt, black trousers, tuxedo, Bowtie. The women generally where a black dress of some sort. When I told him that he was expected to wear a tuxedo and a bow tie and so on. He just he just didn't believe me. He really didn't believe me. Thought I was being silly. But he's very easy to see on the photos as he's the one wearing a gray suit and the flowery tie. Idea. Embarrassing? Yes 16. During the Meeting - Introduction: This section really is what we could call the vocabulary section, although it's called during the Meeting. So lots of things happen during meetings. People ask questions, they want to interrupt the speaker. There was to ask for clarifications, asked for Opinions, giving Opinions, lots of different communication and interaction between the meeting participants. And the important thing here is that you get lots and lots of vocabulary for how to do these things. And not just expressions, but also idioms and phrasal verbs that are very common to specific situations. And they're grouped into formal and informal. So the thing is, with this formal, informal, it's not black and white. It's not either formal or informal. But what we will find is there's a whole sort of gradient between very informal and very formal and your Meeting will fall somewhere in between. So don't be confused when you see, are these only formal expressions is only informal expressions. Take them and use them as you think appropriate 17. Making Suggestions: Welcome to this lesson on making Suggestions. If you're in any kind of brainstorming or problem-solving meeting, you will need to know how to make Suggestions. And the way you do it will depend on whether you're in a formal or an informal setting. So let's have a look at some of the vocabulary. You would use an, a formal setting to make suggestions. I would recommend increasing the price. That suggests we take something into consideration, whatever that something is. I think the best course of action would be whenever my recommendation would be whatever. Has anyone considered? Something? More in my opinion, I think we should. And then you might go suggestion. If we look at informal situations, we would use different expressions. We would say something like, let's put the price up. Or we might as well something, or we could always do this. Why don't we do that? Or the top of my head, we could whatever or bar suppose we could, then you might your suggestion. So again, as you've seen with other lessons, the Informal freezers are usually a lot shorter than the formal phrases. And these aren't, of course, all of them. This is us an example 18. Asking for Opinions: Welcome to this lesson on vocabulary used for asking for Opinions. Some people tend to be quiet during meetings and you may need to give them some encouragement to speak. And you can also use this as a tactful way of stopping someone else and hogging the Meeting without having to directly tell them to shut up. And you will need to know different expressions that you can use an formal and informal situations. Look at some Vocabulary for formal situations. John, I would be interested to hear your views on this. What are your thoughts on this matter, Julie? Does anyone have any other comments? Dr. Brown, Could we get your input, please? Joe, would you be so kind as to share your opinion, please? Send me I'd like to hear your views on whatever you all in agreement. Asking for Opinions, fairly nice ways that we look at some informal ones. Bob, what do you think of coming? What's your view and what about up to Allison? What do you reckon? John? Do you go along with that? Honeywell thoughts? Anyone? You all agree? Again, the informal ones a lot shorter than the formal ones? 19. Giving Opinions: Welcome to this lesson on vocabulary involved in giving Opinions. Often in a meeting you might be asked directly for your opinion. You might just want to add your thoughts to the discussion. But either way, you will need to know some informal and formal vocabulary that you can do this. Formal ways of expressing your opinion. So we have strong and weak Opinions. For strong opinions where they say, I have no doubt that whatever I am absolutely convinced that whatever situation is, or in my opinion, I firmly believe that these are all very formal ways of expressing a strong opinion. Or maybe your opinion is not that strong, it could be a bit weaker. In which case you would say, I tend to favor this option. Now would probably say that someone so while in my limited experience. And then you say what you think, will also have Informal vocabulary used for the same thing for strong and weak Opinions. So look at some informal Vocabulary for strong opinions. I'm sure that your opinion, the way I see it, pinion, personally speaking, I reckon that express your opinion. And if you have a weak opinion, so you're not totally convinced. You might say like, well, I guess that it looks like or it seems to me that there's always a sort of saying your opinion is not that strong. Now look at some idioms concerned with giving Opinions. Very quickly. Idioms are these expressions where you understand each individual word. But that doesn't help you to understand the overall meaning of the expression. Don't have a look at some is clear what we need to do. It's a no-brainer. Oh, and by the way, in these examples, all the idioms are in italics. No brainer is something that you don't need to think about. You don't need your brain for this decision. I've set my bit, but I'm happy to take a backseat to the DBA DBAs database administrator. And if you take a backseat to someone, you let them do the driving. If you imagine a car, use it in the back, let them sit in the front and do the driving. So you're deferring to them. Seems to me we need a solid plan B. Plan B in this case is a backup plan. In case something goes wrong with plan a high the first option, I think the management is trying to gas lighters. Gas light someone. It's kinda the polite way of saying ******** or they're trying to confuse you with false facts, false information, they're trying to mislead you, they trying to distract you from the real issues. You see a lot in politics today. Our project has passed the point of no return. The point of no return is where you have to go forwards. If you imagine going across the desert and you only have enough, have enough water for say, ten days. And the desert trip takes eight days. If you go over more than halfway plus a bit and then want to come back, you can't show no longer have enough water, you have to keep going to the end. The same with the projects as well. Saying we've done so much, we have to complete it. Personally. I'm in two minds about the budget. But if you're into minds about something, you're undecided, you can see both arguments. You understand them both. You see the pros and cons of both, but you're undecided 20. Asking for Clarification: Welcome to this lesson on vocabulary use when asking for Clarification. As will often happen during a meeting, someone will say something or explain something. And you didn't really understand what they said. They didn't explain it very well, or it's complicated. In cases like these, you will need to ask them for Clarification. And again, the different expressions you can use within a formal and an informal situation. Formal situation first, here's some formal expressions and asking for clarification. I'm sorry, could you repeat that, please? Could you please tell me what you mean by whatever? I'm afraid that I don't understand the concept. I'm not sure I follow you. Could you give us some more details, please? Could you explain to me how this is going to work, please? Or would I be correct in thinking that then you kinda repeat back what they said and the way you understood it. Or could you be a little more specific, please? Now you notice in all of these what the person isn't saying is you didn't explain it well there saying I didn't understand it. Okay. And this is quite important if you want to keep people Suite. So you would say, I didn't understand it. Could you explain it again rather than your explanation was crap or you didn't explain it well, you always put it to I didn't understand it. Okay. Very important. Some informal situation expressions. I didn't catch all of that. What did you say? What do you mean by now you've lost me. Try again. Not following you. Got details on that. House is supposed to work. So in other words, and then you repeat back what you understood. Again, you're not really blaming them for explaining it badly. You will say I didn't get it. Yeah. I'm not following you. Okay. So important 21. Agreeing and Disagreeing: Welcome to this lesson on the vocabulary involved with agreeing and Disagreeing. So in order to come to a conclusion, you will need to let other people know whether you agree with them or not. And the different ways to do this in formal and informal situations. Look at the formal ones first. I will need to have some formal expressions that show a strong agreement and then a week agreement. Look at the strong agreement first. I have exactly the same opinion. Very clear. Absolutely. I totally agree with you on this. Will be glad to hear. I feel exactly the same way. For Week agreements. I'm with you up to a point. I would have to say that I'm impartial agreement. I agree with you to an extent, but these were all week agreements. We can do the same thing for informal. We have informal expressions both for strong and weak agreement, and we look at the strong ones first. You hit the nail on the head. And that's also an idiom. I with Mark on this. Couldn't agree more. Then four for Week agreement. I guess you're right. Kind of agree with you on that. It's true, I suppose. Then we can disagree with somebody. Look at the formal ways of disagreement. Again, for strong and weak disagreement. The strong ones first, I'm sorry, but I can't agree with you on this. With respect I have to say that I don't agree. What I understand what you're saying. I'm of a different opinion. Then we have a week disagreement. I'm inclined to think the opposite. I'm not sure I can go along with that. I'm wondering if it might be better to and then do it differently. Here are some informal expressions that you can use to show strong and weak disagreement. Firstly, the strong ones. That's out of the question. No way. I don't see it that way at all. And then the week disagreement, I don't really agree with you. I'm not sure that will work. Well, it depends, doesn't it? Here we have some idioms about agreeing idioms as remember, expressions after strange meaning, not really based on the words in them, will have a look at some idioms for agreement. I'm glad we managed to clear the air, be sorted out the problem. And again, the ileum itself is in italics. It's good to see we're on the same wavelength about the budget that on the same wavelength. In agreement, we finally managed to bury the hatchet. We've, we've sorted out our differences. We will find now, it's good to let bygones be bygones. It's similar to the bury the hatchet. It's all sorted out. We're good with each other now. The last meeting is water under the bridge. Let's look forward though from this, you can maybe infer that the last meeting was a bit contentious and maybe things were said that shouldn't have been said. Whoever saying this, maybe the chairman or the chair is maybe say Okay, that's all in the past. Water under the bridge can't change it. Let's look forward. You need to make a decision. You can't sit on the fence here. So this doesn't really fit in with the agreeing but demand to a whole slide for one ileum. So if you sit on the fence, you don't make a decision. You don't agree, You don't disagree. That says, this says that you've just effectively choose not to decide. And here are some idioms about Disagreeing. Berlin, Tony were at loggerheads over the marketing budget. If they're at loggerheads, they're really, really not an agreement in an unfriendly way. I have a bone to pick with you about your presentation. If ever bone to pick with someone that something you disagree with and you want to take it up with them. You might think I'm splitting hairs, but I feel splitting hairs. You're being pedantic and really finding very fine differences between things that are maybe similar. Sarah seemed to enjoy picking holes in Amy's concept. So Sarah, if you're picking holes in the concept or just taking it apart, just for the front of it. Finding out anything that's wrong with it. Pointing out things not a good thing to do to your colleague. Sorry, but I must take issue with you about the interface. If you take issue with something or someone, you disagree with it and you want to discuss it nasally. Peter and Andy locked horns for 2 h about the new budget. Locked horns, if you imagine goats are male goats in the Meeting season, they locked their own than a push each other. And again, it's another expression that shows that they really got down to it and they weren't happy with each other and they were fighting almost as I locked horns. Good expression 22. Interrupting: Welcome to this lesson on vocabulary and language used for interrupting and handling interruptions. It can happen during a meeting that you wish to interrupt another participant. This needs to be lumped politely. You would normally start off by apologizing for the interruption. And then all asking permission from the speaker. Also need a good reason for interrupting someone. You could also expect the chair to get involved with this type of thing. And as with previous lessons, there are formal and informal expressions you can use. Another important point is depending on the culture, interruptions may actually be frowned upon. The chair. Quite often, the chair might be involved with managing interruptions. So for example, Paul is speaking and Jim interrupts to the chair, could say, tuple at a gym. Please let Paula finish a point. Thank you, Jim. Then when Paul has finished her point, the check and then involve Jim and say, Jim, I believe he wanted to add something. And this is good for the chair to do because it keeps the flow going, it stops them getting derailed. And it also acknowledges that Jim wants to say something and brings him in when she's finished. So it says a good way of handling interruptions otherwise and get out of hand. Here's some formal expressions for interrupting somebody. Excuse me for interrupting. Could I just say see quickly what you want to say? I'm sorry to interrupt, but if you don't mind, I would just like to add before you continue, Can I just point out it might forgotten someone. If I could just interrupt for a moment. Sorry, Peter, but I think we agree that I should present this topic. Now, this last one is not really interrupting in the same way as the other ones were. This is a way of you helping out your colleague who's struggling without him appearing to make him look stupid. So what can happen is if pizzas doing a presentation, say to customers or potential customers, and he's struggling a bit with one of the parts of the presentation. Rather than letting him stand their struggle and make everyone looks silly. What you could do if you think you can do it better is to set, sorry, Peter, I think we agree that I would do this part. And it helps you then take over present that part of whatever it is. You do it in a way that doesn't make him look silly. This is important as your colleague. And it makes you look as if the presentation has been planned and that you've disgusted and he just forgot that this was your part. Okay, Is he will be grateful for you for doing it this way. Now, some informal ways of interrupting people. Ok. Can I just say or can I just add them? Sorry to butt in here, but, um, but in is a, an idiom and it's also a phrasal verb. Oh, hang on when it pulls. What about sorry, what did he mean by asking a bit more for Clarification. I hate to interrupt, but sorry to jump in, but they end jumping as a phrasal verb here. Can I chime in here quickly? And chime in is also an idiom and a phrasal verb. And it just means to interrupt, to add something quickly. We mentioned before culture. And this is really more again, if you're involved in international meetings and you really have to ask yourself, is interrupting negatively and also a source of disrespect. If this is the case, you would be well advised to avoid interruptions, but how politely you think you're doing it. It might be really difficult if you come from somewhere that accepts and encourages others to start speaking before the end of the other person sentence. As with all of these things, do yourself a favor and check the local customs and adapt accordingly 23. Ending the Meeting: Welcome to this next lesson on the vocabulary use when ending a meeting. There are a few points to cover an ending the Meeting. A few things you need to do. For instance, he would need to summarize the Meeting, check that everything has been discussed, ever forgotten, anything. You want to thank the participants for attending. You also have some possible small Talk at the end of the Meeting, as we did at the beginning. What about summarizing? So need to provide a brief summary of the Meeting. And this is also helpful for the scribe, either person who's writing the minutes, as well as the participants. You might say. So to conclude, we decided to a new, summarize what you decided to do. Before we close. Here's a summary of the main points or so to sum up our agreement and then follows a summary, I'm want to make sure that you've covered all the points on the Agenda. Might say, we have covered everything on the Agenda so that people know this. If there's nothing more to discuss, we can end it here. Or you might even ask, is there anything left to discuss before we wrap this up? Wrap-up isn't to finish. You want to thank the participants for coming. It's polite and it shows that you respect their time. Here are some expressions you can use for this. Thank you all for coming today. Thank you all for a productive meeting. Thank you all for your time today. Thank you all for participating in today's meeting. Thank you all for your helpful contributions. Then we have the small Talk. So often everyone walks out together and it's sort of weird if you all walking in silence. A little small Talk can help here. There is a lesson on small Talk at the beginning of this section to refer back to that if you need some more information on it. But here are a few things you might like to just say to someone as you're walking out. Are you going straight back to your office? Are you done for the day? You have an interesting plans for the weekend. Would you like to get something to eat? If the meeting was late morning, it might be lunchtime already entered little things just to keep the track going as you're walking off 24. After the Meeting - Introduction: The Meetings finished. Everyone has said everything they need to say, all the decisions have been made and everyone's gone. But that's not the end of it. For some people, there are still things that need to be done after the Meeting. One of the most important ones is writing and distributing the minutes of the Meeting. And this is basically what this section is concerned with. Give you a way of writing Minutes that people will understand. And it gives you a way of making interesting for you as well. So hope you find this lesson useful 25. Writing and Sending Minutes: Welcome to this lesson on writing and Sending Minutes. The meeting is over and everyone has left the room or logged off if they were accessing remotely. But the scribe still has some important tasks to complete. And these are writing or transcribing the minutes, distributing or sharing the minutes, and filing in storing the minutes for future reference. And we'll look at all of these in detail now. Writing the minutes, time to use your notes and write the minutes. Good idea to do this as soon as you can after the Meeting has finished. What everything is still fresh in your mind. You will review your outline and if you need to add some additional nodes or clarify some points that were raised. You can also check to ensure that all the decisions, actions, emotions are clearly noted. And then you want to edit it to make sure that it's clear and easy to read. But you still need to make sure that the sufficient detail for it to make sense, you will find yourself using the passive voice a lot in this to the passive voice bit. So when writing minutes, the passive voice is preferred. And you notice that is a passive voice sentence. So instead of saying Tim Brown, things that half of the budget to go should go to social media marketing to keep out with today's evolution. You would instead, right? It was suggested that half of the budget be devoted to social media marketing team. Keep up with today's evolution. They don't name the person you just say it was suggested that what sort of typical vocabulary we use with minutes. If you report on what happens in a meeting, there's probably like three or four verbs you could just use over and over again, and that would do the job fine. But this will get boring really quickly. You may want to use some different words. A lot of these verbs can also be used in their noun form. So, for instance, you could discuss or have a discussion. You could suggest or make a suggestion or decide or make a decision. But when you're writing minutes, it's usually shorter to just to use the verb form. The new location was discussed. She reported that sales were up this quarter. That's enough. That's fine. It says all you need to say. If there's a decision involved, It's common to use the verb discuss with us of a W-H word like whether or when, followed by an infinitive. The WH word is in italics and the infinitive is involved in these examples. They discussed whether to open new offices. They discussed when to close the Oxford store. You see the pattern there? We said earlier. You could probably use the same three or four verbs all the way through. And that would be boring. So let's look at some alternative ways to say report or alternatives to report. You can someone gave an update on the remodel or showed us a report on sales in the first-quarter, presented information on the number of visitors or explained the problem or situation. Just told the team that the competition is cutting in on our sales or announced the date of the summer barbecue. All these are good options to use instead of report. Similarly, we can do the same thing for discussions. So you might considered how to compete with the competition, debated whether to compete or agreed to do more research. The word debate emphasizes that the word different points of view. I hope I shouldn't have to say this, but check your minutes for errors. These can be factual errors, spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, grammar errors. There's lots of things that can go wrong at a typos as well. You can use a software program to help you if you prefer. For instance, grammarly is quite a good tool for this. But like all tools, they need to be used with caution. Don't just blindly accept all the suggested changes you will end up with a document is worse than it was before. Hey, these are good tools, but use them as tools. Once the minutes have been written, you should then ask the chair to check that your minutes are complete and factually correct. As describe, you will also most likely have to distribute them minutes, maybe, to the participants in the attendees. The exact method of sharing or distribution will largely depend on the tools that you and your organization use. Since minutes and other documentation can create, a lot of paper, is greener if you can use some sort of paperless sharing process. So for instance, you could create a PDF of your document and send this and the other meeting documentation via email as an attachment. Or you could use some sort of online storage lies instance Google Docs. And you can use then the invitations, the Agenda and additional documents, and simply share them minutes with that group once it's been finalized. And then committee or board members can read documents online. There's no need to chop down trees. And the last thing we've talked about is filing and storing of minutes. Now with regular board meetings and so on. Usually the first order of events is to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. Once you've made any revisions that are needed, the minutes will then need to be stored for future reference. This will probably be, say, centrally on a server and made available either directly or via a company, intranet. And some organizations by even store them in it's online. You may also need to print and store hard copies, as well as to provide these to a staff member or chair for filing. And for something really important here to bear in mind for very formal meetings. So board meetings, your written notes, the draft and final versions of the meetings will then form a set that needs to be stored together. So depending on if it's queries on the minutes, they may need to refer back to your written notes to find out what's going on