Выберите подходящие по смыслу глаголы и заполните пропуски

1. Can we ___________ up a meeting for Monday next week? (arrange/agree/set)
2. Something came up so they had to ___________ Monday’s meeting till Friday. (postpone/cancel/fix)
3. Monica is off sick so Michael will have to ____________ the staff meeting. (charge/chief/chair)
4. He has to ___________ the meeting in Berlin because his boss is in Spain. (go/attend/visit)
5. It’s a very important meeting so make sure you don’t ___________ it. (miss/lose/avoid)
6. She decided to ___________ the meeting because there was nothing to talk about. (cancel/arrange/fix)
7. I asked Jane to _____________ the meeting next week, but there were no rooms available. (run/cancel/arrange)
8. They ___________ the meeting, but they didn’t hear anything interesting. (postponed/missed/attended)

3. Заполните пропуски словами из рамки. С какими утверждениями Вы согласны?

waste, find, make, chat, discuss, criticize, exchange

Meetings are…

a. an ideal opportunity to _____________ points of view

b. the best place to ____________ key decisions

c. a safe environment in which to ______________ important issues

d. a rare chance to _____________ with other people

e. the only way to _____________ out what’s really going on

f. an open invitation to _____________ each other

g. the perfect excuse to _____________ some time.

4. Прочитайте мнения людей о совещаниях, в которых они участвовали. Чем вызвано их недовольство? Составьте список возможных проблем, которые могут возникнуть при организации и проведении совещаний. Обсудите возможные варианты решения этих проблем.

1. Well, nothing interesting was ever discussed in a boardroom. That’s why it’s called a boardroom – people go there to be bored. Moreover, most offices are unsuitable for long meetings.
2. The same two or three people seem to dominate. The rest of us seem to switch off – daydream, count the minutes. I sometimes play games on my laptop with the sound off.
3. I try to stop them over-running. We sometimes hold meetings without chairs. That speeds things up a lot. I’ve even tried showing a red card to people, who can’t stop talking in time, like in football.
4. They are usually badly organized. Nobody sticks to the point. People digress all the time. It takes ages to get down to business. As they say: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
5. You often get several people all talking at the same time. So no one is really listening to anyone else. They are just planning what they are going to say next. It’s survival of the loudest.
6. Nobody seems to come to the meeting properly prepared. If you want a copy of the report, they don’t have it with them. If you need to see the figures, they will get them back to you.
7. You often leave a meeting not really knowing what you are supposed to do next, what the action plan is. I usually end up phoning people afterwards to find out what we actually agreed.
8. It’s a joke that everyone’s opinion is valued. I mean how much you can disagree with the boss? After all, he is the boss!