Women's World LET'S HAVE A MEETING by BEATRICE ASHTON It is a miserable winter morning, too wet for the small children to play outside. Two women are trying to talk while their children tumble over each other on the kitchen floor. ‘Why don't we have a kindergarten for the little ones?’ ‘I don't know … we never have …’ ‘Then why not. It would be much better for them to have a proper place to play. Let's have a meeting about it …’ Women nowadays have many public responsibilities, and many of them began in just this way in someone's kitchen or backyard. One woman has a good idea, and in no time several women are meeting together to carry it out. Someone thinks the local school needs a piano; someone else wants to start a branch of the Maori Women's Welfare League; an energetic mother would like to persuade other mothers to join her in making a hot drink for the school children in the cold weather. Whatever it is, the best way to start something new—the best way to get anything done—is to have a meeting. Busy wives and mothers often find it difficult to get to meetings. When they make the effort they expect the meeting to be a good one.

WHAT MAKES A MEETING GOOD? A good meeting depends on its Chairman and Secretary, and on how well they stick to the rules. Imagine a game of basketball in which the team gets out of hand because the referee is not firm enough. The game breaks up and everyone is dissatisfied. A bad meeting is very like that. If the referee or CHAIRMAN is not firm about the rules; and if the team-manager or SECRETARY has not prepared for the meeting properly, it is not worth going to, because nothing gets done.

GETTING READY FOR A MEETING Long before the meeting begins a good Secretary has been extremely busy. The SECRETARY calls the meeting together (by letter or by telephone); brings all the letters she has received, to read at the meeting (even such a small thing as a leaflet advertising Te Ao Hou); arrives with the minutes of the last meeting carefully entered in the minute-book; prepares the AGENDA with the Chairman.

THE AGENDA The agenda is one of those terrifying things that convince many women that running a