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St. James the Least of All
My dear Nephew Darren
Clearly, the sight of your Vicar running out of the room half way through your last church council meeting, saying he should have stayed as a traffic warden, where he was universally liked, has unnerved you. It would have unnerved me too, since a universally popular traffic warden is an exceptional creature.
But perhaps it is necessary to give you some advice for the day when you do chair your first church council meeting.
1. Consider every agenda issue carefully beforehand and decide what you would like to do. Then, at the meeting, consult widely, listen to every opinion, weigh all the arguments, and then do precisely what you had decided before the meeting ever took place.
2. Never, ever, let council members discuss hymns, which avoids getting blood on the carpets.
3. Arrange the seating in rows, all facing the front, so that everyone has to respond directly to you. The last thing you want is for council members to be able to discuss matters freely with one another.
4. Start smoking a pipe. At those times when you are faced with an issue when you really are unsure of how to respond, taking out your pipe, dismantling it, searching for a pipe cleaner, squinting down the stem to see if it is clean, mopping out the goo in the bowl, searching for your tobacco pouch, filling the pipe, tamping it down, asking if you can borrow matches and attempting to light it several times over, will give you more than sufficient time to formulate a reply. Once you have perfected the routine, the silence will have been so protracted, that most of the committee with have long forgotten what the question was anyway.
5. If someone is talking too long, consult your diary, noisily and obsessively, about next month's appointments, or write a note to a committee member who is at the back of the room and get it passed to him. The speaker should soon get the message.
These are the simpler techniques of committee management. The advanced procedures must wait until you are strong enough to bear them.
Your loving uncle,
Eustace.
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