Business

Meetings Essentials

Reading 5 min Article Advanced

Vocabulary - 9 contextual words

Grammar - Compound Nouns

Exercise

Tap all the highlighted words below to see their definition. ⇩

Preparing for a Meeting:

If you are the one arranging or calling a meeting it is important to include:

The date
Time (hour)
Length
Purpose

It is always good to send a confirmation email with these details if you have verbally arranged it. It would also be a good idea to mention who is expected to attend and if you are allocating someone specific to take on a certain role, make sure you let them know in advance.

Writing an Agenda:

In order to keep the meeting to the point and within the time mentioned, you should have an agenda. The agenda tells everyone attending the meeting, the topics, who will be speaking and at what time.

If the attendees know what will be covered during the meeting, this will help them be more prepared for the meeting.

An agenda can be written in a simple numbered list for example;

Welcome, Introduction: Marcos and JD (5 minutes)
Minutes from previous meeting: Alexia (10 minutes)
New project pitch: Jerome (15 minutes)

Small Talk:

Whether you are holding the meeting or an attendee, it is considered polite to make small talk while waiting for everyone to arrive. Keep the topics casual and unrelated to the meeting itself, such as, the weather, weekend plans, Netflix…

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting are usually taken by someone who is not participating in the meeting. They will be asked to sit in the meeting and record who attended, topics covered and other important additional information.

Types of meetings:

There are 6 common types of business meetings. The names of these meetings are compound words, meaning they describe in the title exactly what each meeting type is. For example;

Status Update Meetings – meetings that keep employees informed of things happening in the workplace
Decision-Making Meetings – usually run by the company’s decision makers
Problem-Solving Meetings – normally held to work out a solution to an issue
Team-Building Meetings – designed to create team bonds
Idea-Sharing Meetings – normally known as a brainstorming session
Innovation Meetings – a meeting to share new ideas to help the company grow.

What is your favorite type of meeting? Share in the comments.

Meetings Essentials

Grammar – Compound Nouns

A COMPOUND NOUN is a word made of two or more words. The COMPOUND NOUN often has a different meaning…

Compound nouns

A COMPOUND NOUN is a word made of two or more words. The COMPOUND NOUN often has a different meaning than the original words. We can make these words from : NOUN+NOUN (seafood, son-in-law, fire-fighter), NOUN+ADJECTIVE (greenhouse, bottle opener), or VERB+NOUN (runway, moonlight), in any order.
Some COMPOUND NOUNS are one word:
bathroom, cupboard, airline.
Some COMPOUND NOUNS use HYPHENS:
check-in, mother-in-law
Some COMPOUND NOUNS use SPACES:
bottle opener, Prime Minister
We usually make PLURAL COMPOUND NOUNS when we add an “s” to the final word in the compound (“greenhouses, bottle openers.”), but some hyphen nouns (“brothers-in-law”) are different.
Most COMPOUND NOUNS have stress on the first “word” when speaking: BATHroom, GREENhouse, MOONlight. Formal names and place names (New YORK, Mount HOOD) can be different.