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The agenda is the list of items to be discussed at the meeting. It should be circulated to those attending the meeting well in advance, together with any relevant papers or reports to be discussed during the meeting.

You should include the following in the agenda:

▪ The name of the committee, etc., of the company or organization.

▪ The date and time of the meeting and the venue.

▪ A list of the members who will attend the meeting. My preference is to list these in the following order to show the roles of the individuals: Ray Smith (chair), then every other individual with their job title listed either in terms of seniority (the highest/most important coming first) or in alphabetical order of their family name. The name of the person taking the minutes should also be given.

▪ Apologies (this means any individuals who should be present at the meeting but who cannot attend will have their apologies noted).

▪ Regular items such as:

▪ Minutes of the previous meeting held on [insert date]. This is the opportunity for the minutes of the previous meeting to be approved and signed as a correct record.

▪ Matters arising. These are matters that have arisen from the previous minutes but are not listed on the present agenda.

▪ Financial reports and other progress reports.

▪ New items to be discussed at the meeting. Here, it is useful for the most important items to be discussed as soon as possible, rather than being left to the end.

▪ Don’t try to fit too many items of significant new business into the meeting.

▪ The final item on the agenda should ideally be positive, to avoid participants leaving the meeting in a negative mood.

Two items often come at the end of the agenda:

▪ AOB (any other business). This is the opportunity for individuals at the meeting to raise other items to discuss. However, participants should ideally not raise significant items without informing the chair before the meeting.

▪ DONM (date of next meeting). To arrange the date of the next meeting of the committee, group, etc.

Agendas also sometimes include the following:

▪ the name of the individual (or their initials) who will lead the discussion of a particular point;

▪ the length of time that a particular point is planned to take.

Send out the agenda with a covering note well in advance of the meeting, to give participants enough time to prepare for it.