Subject: council order, chair person

[MICRO-Management alert]

Today I had the good fortune to chair a meeting of 10 persons,
which have the character of debating and decision making.
I had been to these meetings before but hadn't chaired them,
they usually proceeded in a mostly unstructured manner as if
there was no chair person. Effectively there was none, nominally
perhaps someone might be responsible but effectively nothing was
structured, the word was not given to anyone. Much of the time
these meeting could get relatively rough, heated debates that
certainly approached roughness. Someone commented earlier today
she would not go to this meeting because it was too rough.

So when it started the issue came up who should write the minutes,
someone volunteered, then the issue who should chair, I said I'd
do it. I said I could do it strict or loose, and they wanted me
to do it strictly. Obviously they also where unhappy with past
experience, as was I. I then ran this meeting virtually with an
iron fist, quite literally, tapping an iron fork on the table 
saying "order order" whenever needed, cutting people short and
attempting to rule the floor with a strong voice and commanding
clarity (lol) of when what point was to be discussed. What I also
did was take out my arm and point with outstretched finger straight
at the face of the person I was giving the word, and paying total
attention to what that person was saying, especially if that person
was a little bit of a timid person. Because this was a meeting with
the potential to spiral out of control this worked very well, if
the meeting is generally well behaved it would obviously been 
slightly absurd to point like that. On occasion I let the debate
slip a little out of control, back and forth between the members,
so that it wasn't a complete stranglehold but allowed to live a
little too. But then to bring it back to order after a little while,
and it would run itself into circles quickly so that was a good
moment to cut it short. I attempted to steer the debate to points
of action that could be decided and then done. That way we could get
things on paper that we could end up doing. But one issue was quite
out of our control but serious, so this ran a little by its own
course and I guess that was fine too.

The main point was: control the table, cleave the debate or what
people said to what mattered, giving people, also the ones who would
otherwise be quite firm, very clearly the complete attention of all.
This way they did not have to act up to be heard, everyone could be
heard fully and freely without interruption. By giving everyone this
treatment, I guess nobody held it against me either. On occasion
I attempted to join the debate as a member, but quite rightly others
interrupted me because what I said wasn't of much value on occasion.
So that is I guess the dual role, and this worked quite fine too.

From these experiences I would make up the following for council order,
to be used in case things don't work:
- Chair a meeting with an absolutely iron fist.
- When members put it forward something they do not like about this
  iron fist, it can be discussed, and maybe another should continue
  to chair that meeting. Too much order should be quite easily
  reduced this way, the order to clearly talk and discuss is there.
  In a group of 10 this should be absolutely no problem whatsoever
  (as opposed to a group of 50 perhaps, though too much order there
  is probably also being at the safe side of caution.) When there is
  massive disorder, there is neither the order to discuss order itself.
- The chair-person should follow the debate very closely, to make sure
  it is not turning into circles. It is not enough to just give everyone
  the word by turn, something has to be said and done with the arguments.
  If the arguments are avoided the chair person can repeat them. A
  chair person lacking the intelligence to really do that, to follow the
  debates on content and more importantly the arguments around which it
  revolves, then it would probably cause the meeting to last longer.

All in all it worked pretty good, they where all quite content with how
it went, and the meeting closed ahead of time and with a good hand of
doable action points on record.

I found that tapping the table with an iron object, like many little
taps sometimes a little harder, not overwhelming but just to underline
it, worked very well.

I guess that as a chair person you should always make sure to remain
good natured and friendly to any and all, because once anger comes in
then I guess it is all lost. Then the chair person position is really
nothing but a platform to bash out, which would make things worse. So
an iron fist, but gently and objectively brought down center table
and on nobody in particular, neither those acting out and neither those
being timid etc.

*

I did say this was a micro-management alert. I don't like to prescribe
such detail to grown people, but you can probably appreciate the fear
I might have with an entire nation being run by committee like this, and
if then by default 90% of these meetings are not going well simply
because nobody dares to put down the iron fist of order even while all
crave for it. This also concludes this chest pounding session; it has been 
a pleasure.