In this presentation, the speaker outlines his three‑core‑area expertise in meetings, drawing on over 35 years of professional consulting experience. He breaks down his services into five main domains: (1) Meeting Management – designing agendas, selecting venues, and orchestrating logistics to ensure meetings achieve their objectives; (2) Chairing Meetings – teaching chairing skills via an online course, offering coaching, and providing "chairman for hire" services for strata and conflict meetings; (3) Meeting Procedure – authoring three books and co‑authoring a fourth on procedural motions, votes, amendments, and points of order, delivering deep technical knowledge for those who need it; (4) Minute‑Taking – running a 30‑year training program that teaches a proprietary technique for producing high‑quality minutes quickly, backed by his qualifications as a company secretary; and (5) Governance – leveraging academic credentials in corporate governance to advise not‑for‑profit organisations (sports, parent, community groups) on governance structures, while clarifying the limits of his legal advice. He emphasizes a flexible, client‑centred consulting style, offering legal‑related guidance without providing formal legal advice, and notes his occasional work with law firms on procedural matters.
Chapters
Meetings is one of my 3 core areas of expertise. But meetings breaks down into a number of things. I've been working as a professional consultant in meetings for over 35 years. Let's look at the ways that it breaks down. First of all, I look at meeting management, how meetings are organised and managed so that they achieve the results they need to achieve. That comes down to agendas, it comes down to meeting rooms, sometimes venues, and a whole range of other things about how the meeting itself is managed to achieve results. I also look at chairing meetings. And I have an online course called How to Chair a Meeting, which you may be interested in. But chairing meetings is a great skill that used to be more common than it is now. Less people know how to chair a meeting really well than they used to. And the reason is, people learn how to chair a meeting by watching other people chair meetings. And the sad reality is most people I come across say that the meetings they go to are not chaired that well. I coach people in how to chair meetings, and I also chair meetings as a chairman for hire, particularly strata management groups and conflict meetings. I'll come in and chair the meeting on your behalf. The next one is procedure. I'm an expert on meeting procedure. I've written 3 books on the topic and co-authored one, and I go into the minute detail that some people need. Not many people, but some people do need to know the specific detail about meeting procedure. The detail of procedural motions, the detail of substantive motions, deliberative votes, casting votes, amendments, points of order. All of the detail that some people need. I have all of that knowledge, and as I say, I've written books about it. I also look at the minutes. I've been running a minute-taking training program for 30 years, and I have trained thousands and thousands and thousands of people in effective minute-taking. I have a particular technique that I teach that enables people to get really high-quality, useful minutes in a very, very short time. I'm a qualified company secretary and I've taken minutes at board meetings and many other meetings. I know how to do it because I've done it myself and I've perfected a method that enables minutes to be done very quickly and very, very effectively. The final area which comes under meetings is governance. I have academic qualifications in corporate governance and I can help organisations, particularly not-for-profits, in their governance. I don't work in the listed company area. That's not my area of expertise, but in the not-for-profits, I do a lot of work in governance for associations and groups like sports groups, parents groups, community groups. Governance is an important element which many people don't understand fully, and I help with that. My style in meetings is I'm very flexible and I look at what your needs are. I don't try to impose my point of view on you, but I will give you the information you require and frequently that information is a legal point. While I'm not a lawyer, I have studied law and I do know within the area of meeting procedure what the legalities are and are not. But I don't pretend— I'm not able to legally, as you would understand, to give legal advice. But I do give suggestions for people to go and seek advice if they need to. But more often than not, I can give the answer. I actually coincidentally consult to some legal firms About meeting procedure. So that's meetings, one of the 3 core areas of my expertise.
