So how many of you actually listen to Minutes drafted at Meeting for Business? Pay attention at the back there! This beguiling tale of lost concentration has been passed to us by a Friend who wishes to remain anonymous ‘to avoid a more public embarrassment to the now contrite committee and their Meeting.’
The story is taken up by our nameless Friend: ‘Our Premises Committee follows the common practice of requiring the convener to draft the minutes after the meeting, which are then circulated and subsequently approved or amended at the next meeting.’
The convener was apparently going through a period of self-doubt. Did anyone consider, or indeed read, his Minutes? ‘He decided’ says our Friend ‘to test his suspicion by slipping in this rather delicious phoney one’.
The sham Minute read: In view of the many problems in our Meeting house we consider the best solution to be the speedy demolition of the whole building. We ask the convener to obtain tenders from three suitably experienced subversive organisations and to go ahead with this plan. If in the meantime any member expresses the view that this may not be in right ordering we would be happy to defer the action to our next meeting.
No-one appears to have noticed. At the next meeting the usual question about minutes of the last meeting met with the usual blank faces – even some suggestions voiced that the minutes had been read carefully – which soon turned to red faces when attention was drawn to the imposter minute.
Fortunately, reports our Friend, the Meeting house was saved from destruction by an astute PM clerk who had read the minutes and stopped the attempts at living adventurously going any further!
The prank was – thankfully – taken in good humour. Our Friend is generous. ‘Many committee members in our Society are overworked people so part of me says thank goodness there are not too many mischievous conveners around playing tricks on them. However, perhaps there is a salutary lesson in this incident in that all conveners should be watched more closely than they sometimes are – and supported by having their minutes read.’