2009/4/1 AndrewRT andrewrturvey@googlemail.com:
One aspect which might be putting people off is the frequency and length of the Board meetings we've been having to date. The initial Board has met 23 times so far (nearly once per week on average) often for 3 hours or more. Whilst this is probably necessary when we're getting things sorted out, I'd like to suggest that the next board has shorter and less frequent meetings. I think meeting once per month for no more than 2 hours would be ideal, so that it's not too much of a burdon on Board members and we avoid burning our volunteers out. At the same time we can change the Board into more of an "oversight" role, and do more "organising" work outside.
My experience of starting up a voluntary organisation is that the workload in getting it running is far, far greater than actually running it. In the first year, our Committee (the executive) met eight times, I think, with an average length of about 4 hours, and the longest meeting running to over six hours. Since then, the Committee has never had more than five full meetings in a year, and the longest meeting has been three and a half hours.
The other thing, from observing some meetings on IRC, is that it seems bloody difficult to chair - the chairman cannot easily shut up people talking when they shouldn't, and it takes longer to conclude that everything has been contributed on a topic and he can move on. I understand that IRC meetings are necessary, but they're inherently inefficient.