Went out for dinner with Tim, a Sagga friend, last night and we were discussing the various difficulties of taking on a Chairman’s role within Sagga (theoretical I hasten to add, neither of us would actually want the job).

The question I had is what is the role is actually there to do – is it to manage the meetings but effectively allow the committee to steer the agenda and make the decisions. Is it to set the agenda yourself and get the committee to follow you? Or is it to simply act as a focal point and administrator to ensure that things do actually happen, it’s just your job to tie it all together. Not having been on the committee for many years it’s hard to remember how the process works. The one thing we both agreed on was it would be very difficult trying to manage a committee meeting where you are disagreeing with someone and they can effectively turn round and tell you to shut up because they’ve changed your nappy.

Now you don’t get that kind of problem in business and they don’t teach you how to deal with that on any training courses I have been on.