TOPIC:

Is there a way to freeze a meeting agenda? I am the toastmaster for an upcoming meeting, and at some point I don't want anybody to make any more changes to "my" meeting.

I did not find any way to do that.

Thanks for any help.

How about...
1. Change the date of the meeting to some far past date – which disallows member sign-ups. ("Agenda Locked To Members"). And makes the agenda harder to find. Restore the date the day after the meeting.
2. Create a new placeholder agenda for the meeting date that says "Contact your Supreme Toastmaster for changes and details." Delete the placeholder the day after the meeting.
3. Try this on a new test agenda if you're not sure how it works.

I agree w/ slothbear... that is what I would also do. I usually would just make it the same month and day in last year... but any time in the past will work.

I agree with StefanHz - this would be a nice feature to have.

I ask my club members not to print their agendas until a given cut off time (in my case midday on the Friday before our meeting). That way all members are working off the same agenda at the meeting. If anyone has to withdraw after the cutoff time they contact the VPE and that is announced at the meeting. Occasionally someone will accidentally withdraw from an agenda role after the cutoff, which causes agenda chaos at or just before the meeting. A cut-off/freeze time option would help.

Moving the agenda to a past date is handy for when the agenda is being prepared, but we want it to be easy to find for printing after the "cutoff time"

Moved to Improvement Suggestions

Hi Slothbear - Thx for that suggestion! In IT this is called a workaround. Workaround and solution are two very different things

Workarounds are not sustainable, and for a professional organization where we teach people on certain aspects of professional conduct, such a workaround does not make any sense to me.

But for the time being, I'll take it.

... and this is not a complaint. I am very well aware of the fact that we get this platform for free, and I am very grateful for that. And that should not keep me from making suggestions to improve the product, I hope

Thanks

The people who can change an Agenda are limited by design, unless your club has handed out cart blanche.

Remember every member can change their mind, locking an agenda is meaningless if i can't make a meeting and have to remove myself at the last minute.

When I am the Toastmaster of a meeting, I am in charge of that meeting. Nobody else. Period. However, my VP of Ed (or the club president) still has access - and at some point, even those high powers should not have the option anymore to change my meeting ... otherwise there is no accountability, i.e., it's not really my meeting. If they need something changed (shame on them for last minute changes they should call me as the Toastmaster rather than just making a silent change in the background.

Yes, people have stuff coming up last minute - that's what mobile phones are for. Just changing the agenda 5 minutes before the meeting does not make any sense ... at that point I already have printed all the agendas and am in the meeting room. That kind of late changes are announced at the beginning of a meeting.

That sounds like a problem you will have to solve in your club, FTH will not solve this for you.

In our club the VPEd is in charge of the Agenda and every member can add and remove themselves at any time. They are asked to respect deadlines, but life has a habit of getting in the way.

I will revisit this at some point to consider including it.

However, in this case, I tend to agree with Brian. FTH features cannot solve every challenge of how clubs work... although we will try to make it help where we can.

Lets say we did include this feature and you set the cut off for agenda changes at 24 hrs ahead of the meeting. If someone has a last minute change and needs to drop themselves out of the meeting are you suggesting they would ignore their situation and show up to the meeting anyway because of some enforcement of agenda changes? I doubt that would happen.

Currently, even if someone drops out after the agenda is printed, at least you could get a notification in your email if you have enabled them. You may not be able re-print the agendas in time, but at least you could react to the change because you got a notification from the agenda change.