Wednesday 16 July 2008

What great meeting!

Last night I chaired the last meeting of our GB this academic year. The major item was to agree (or otherwise) on a secondment for our Principal. Fantastic discussion that was a pleasure to chair - everyone had their say, great points made about the benefits and challenges of the secondment and a very clear decision at the end (only 1 dissenter out of the whole GB) to let him go.

Several people commented afterwards about how mature the discussion had been and that's so encouraging when a couple of years ago it might have descended into argument and other unproductive hecticness. This level of maturity does not come easily, it takes time and preparation - although it does disappoint me to find 'experienced' governors coming along without having read the papers, when I'm King we will just assume they have been read - as well as pre-positioning. How often do members your GB discuss issues that are upcoming outside/ahead of the meeting to give the chance to recognise and work on the issues that are likely to come up; good decisions tend to some from good preparation.

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