Preface

About the author

Introduction

1. Leadership: The key to successful public meetings
Attributes of leadership • The chairperson • Facilitator and discussion leader • The recorder

2. Different types of public meetings
Informational meetings • Advisory meetings • Problem-solving meetings

3. Getting the word out

4. Creating the right environment for each meeting
Satisfactory site • Visible signs • Convenient timing • Welcome refreshments • Room with no views • Necessary name tags • Fail-safe equipment

5. Making effective presentations
Individual presentations • Panel presentations • Question period

6. Graphics and audiovisuals
Menu of audiovisual techniques • Principles of graphics and audiovisual use

7. Dealing with attendees at meetings

8. Positive media relations
Print, radio, and television • Reaching out • Getting the media to announce your meeting • Control the interview • When the media come to your meeting • When the media err • Principles of successful media relations

9. Step-by-step checklist for meeting planners
Pre-meeting • During the meeting • Post-meeting

10. Final thoughts

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Reviewed by Hubert Morgan in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Winter 2004, Vol. 70, No. I

""Enter Elaine Cogan. Her entire book is devoted to the detailsù one might even say minutiaeùof planning and running public meetings. She mines more than 25 years other own experience running hundreds of public meetings in innumerable settings. Throughout the book, she sprinkles vignettes that illustrate the problems and pitfalls of public participation, along with seating diagrams, checklists, and charts comparing presentation methods. She is blunt in her assessment:
Public meetings are unpredictable. They are messy. They often become arenas where people confront each other passionately on issues. They can be time consuming to organize and tedious to attend, taking precious time away from getting on with the matter at hand and reaching a solution, (p. xi) Heeding her counsel presumably minimizes the mess. Cogan writes in an omniscient tone, with no need of appendices, bibliographies, or empirical proofs. No detail is too minor to escape her judgment (""Spoken words can be abbreviated [in graphics] if they are simple and clear""; p. 71). This is not a book for reflection or general edification. It is a how-to book. If you have a meeting to run and are in any way uncertain about how to do it, this book will eradicate your uncertainty. Chapter 9 alone, with its list of 35 things to do before, during, and after the meeting, will see you through.

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