A meeting is a useful forum to discuss, face to face, matters that cannot be dealt with by email or phone. If conducted properly, they can resolve issues and move matters forward. However, we are all busy and unnecessary meetings or unnecessarily long meetings can be energy sapping and stressful. On the other hand, so can long email chains involving many people. We therefore encourage you to consider carefully if a meeting is necessary and, if so, who needs to be present.
Our meeting-room space is limited and so, if possible, we encourage you to hold internal meetings in your room or in the kitchen areas (with consideration to those working at open-plan desks in the vicinity). If this is not possible, or for external meetings, meeting-room space should be booked through the Scheduling Assistant in your Outlook calendar. If you need training in using this please contact IT Support it.support@thameshudson.co.uk. The Scheduling Assistant can quickly and easily show the availability of colleagues, so please use this resource rather than using email to arrange meetings.
Please be sensible about booking meeting rooms: do not book the large meeting rooms on the first and third floors for meetings involving just a few people, if smaller meeting rooms are available and, if meetings are cancelled, you should release the room so others may use it.
Please respect the fact that everyone is busy and turn up on time and with all the papers needed for the meeting. If you are unavoidably delayed, let the meeting organizer know. The meeting organizer is responsible for ensuring that the meeting starts on time and for making it clear who is chairing the meeting and who is taking notes and minutes. Any follow-up notes or minutes should be prepared after the meeting and promptly circulated. These should be brief and concise and clearly state what follow-up action is required, in what time period and by whom, and who is to take overall responsibility for ensuring that the follow-up action is taken.
It is the responsibility of the chair of the meeting to keep the meeting to time and ensure that it ends promptly, particularly if the meeting room has been booked for another meeting. It is the responsibility of the organizer of the meeting to ensure the meeting room is cleared of papers and books and that mugs, glasses etc. are returned to the kitchen area. This should not be left to the organizer of the next meeting to do.
Last updated: 07/03/19
