Doris needs twenty minutes to correct the minutes, because somewhere three meetings ago a phone number went in one digit wrong, and in Doris’s mind nothing else can proceed properly until that’s fixed. Nobody wants to be the one who says just correct it and move on. So the room gives Doris her twenty minutes.
Then Peter raises the shower in the referees’ changing room, which has been broken a fortnight. Fair enough, it needs sorting. What happens next is the part anyone who has sat on a small sports club or community board will recognise instantly: a full hour, not an exaggeration, spent on whether they need three quotes or whether Bob’s mate can just look at it cheap, which pot pays for it since cricket stores its kit in that room but football uses the pitches more, and who’s actually ringing round. Just as something close to a decision starts to form, Doris points out it isn’t on tonight’s agenda, so technically it can only be discussed, not decided, and any actual sign-off needs a full trustee vote next time anyway.
An hour gone. Nothing resolved. And the item that genuinely needed the board’s judgement tonight, the funding decision, the safeguarding policy update, whatever it was that made this meeting worth calling, gets pushed to next month because there’s twenty minutes left and everyone’s given all they’ve got.
This isn’t a caricature. I have sat in that exact meeting, more than once, in more than one organisation. Sometimes it runs to time and the important item gets a rushed five minutes. Just as often it runs two hours over, because a genuinely committed board wants to do right by the minutes and the shower, and by the time all of that’s properly dealt with, there’s nothing left for the decision that actually needed real thought.
Nobody in that room is being difficult on purpose. Doris cares about accuracy. Peter cares about the referees having a working shower. That’s exactly the problem. Good intentions, with no structure around them, will quietly eat an entire meeting on matters that deserved five minutes and a follow-up email, and leave nothing for the one thing trustees actually exist to do: bring judgement to a decision that matters.
The people who notice this pattern fastest tend to be your best trustees, the ones with real expertise who took the role wanting to use it. They don’t resign over the shower. They resign a year or two later, quietly, because their actual judgement was never once asked for.
Send every report out five working days before the meeting, and treat it as read.
Reserve meeting time for two questions only: what are we deciding, and what do we need to know first. Anything not on the agenda, however urgent it feels in the room, gets logged, handed to one named person to sort outside the meeting, and reported back next time. Not debated live for an hour.
That’s not just my own opinion on how to run a tighter ship, either. It lines up with what the Charity Commission and NCVO both actually tell charities to do, worth knowing so this isn’t just my word for it.
Start with your own governing document. It should already set out how often the board has to meet, who’s allowed to attend, what counts as quorate, how voting works, and whether virtual or hybrid meetings are permitted at all. Most boards have genuinely never checked.
Send the agenda and papers out properly in advance, not the night before. Trustees need real time to read and form a view before they walk in.
Open every meeting the same way: note who’s present, who’s sent apologies, confirm the meeting is quorate, and get conflicts of interest declared before anything else happens. A trustee with a conflict on a particular item should step out of that discussion and that decision, not just mention it in passing and carry on.
Keep the meeting itself on governance and decisions, not day-to-day detail. The guidance is blunt about this: trustee time belongs to direction and risk, not the operational weeds Doris and Peter got lost in.
Minute it properly. Not word for word, but clear enough to show what was discussed, what was decided, how any vote went, and what conflicts were declared. Get the draft minutes out to trustees quickly afterwards, and keep them safely for at least six years if you’re a trust or unincorporated association.
Close every item with a clear action: who’s doing what, by when. Then actually circulate that action list straight after the meeting, not whenever someone gets round to it.
None of this is complicated. It’s the difference between a board that meets and a board that governs.
I’ve a fair idea which meeting you just pictured. If you didn’t need to picture one, you’re the exception.
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