Establishing ground rules for meetings

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There are two aspects to establishing ground rules:

  1. Rules to govern interaction in the meetings;
  2. Terms of reference to govern the meetings overall.

Rules to govern interaction in meetings

As far as establishing rules to govern interaction in meetings there is no need to become a dictator by circulating basic rules of etique such as not speaking over other people and/or taking it in turns to raise points.  However it may be useful to have an idea of principles in the back of your mind or as part of a vision that you share with the group.  These principles could be part of the reason why you invite people to join the meeting and if made clear to them at the start of joining then the meetings should run with limited issues:

  • Participation - expectation for people to contrbute their ideas and get involved with discussions at the meetings
  • Get focus - expectation for people to remain focussed on the task of the meeting and help set goals to reach
  • Maintain momentum - expectation that everyone will share in the workload
  • Reach closure - expectation that the meetings will not continue beyond the end goal

TOR to govern meetings overall

In the section about Board committees and sub-committees it was explained that each committee needed to have terms of reference to ensure they were effective.  In a similar way it is important that groups and meetings have terms of reference where they meet on a regular basis.  Holding focus can be easy for one meeting but holding focus for several meetings a year might become unmanageable without a guiding document such as TOR. 

You can download example meeting TOR below.

Downloads:
application/pdf iconManaging Meetings.pdf
A guide to managing meetings.
application/pdf iconPlanning a Great Meeting.pdf
How to plan for a good meeting.
application/pdf iconSRA Governance Stakeholder Group TOR.pdf
Example: Sport and Recreation Alliance, Governance Stakeholder Group TOR
application/msword iconCPSU Case Management Group TOR.doc
Example: Child Protection in Sport Unit, Case Management Group TOR
application/msword iconFinance and Governance Forum TOR.doc
Example: TOR for Finance and Governance Forum