SFO, Are 2hour meetings long enough?

[djames99]

Our fraternity is growing quite large, and we are trying to fit in as much time for individual
discussion as possible. No sooner has everyone said everything, the meeting is over.

   Everyone is frustrated they don't have enough times to speak, and the minister is continually looking as his watch. What is significant is that some members seem to have the

floor more than others and they speak longer. After the meeting we have coffee and talk.

    I'm thinking the meeting times should be 3 hours. It's not unreasonable since it's a monthly gathering. 2 hours would be max for meetings that occured on a bi-weekly basis.

But we also don’t want to feel rushed.

    But how is this handled in orders generally inside the Church?. How do the secular Dominicans do it for instance, and has anyone solved this problem.?

    Thoughts?

 

[jrecortel]

Hello. I’m a novice in Dominican Laity. Our fraternity consist of 18 members. Our monthly meeting is every third Sunday, from 1:30 to 5:00pm. This gives us ample time for everyone to speak and share something to the group. We also meet on first Wednesday 5:00 - 6:30pm to celebrate together Mass and LOTH. We do the same on second Saturday, 6:00 - 7:30am.

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

Our meetings are about 1.5 hrs (the yearly retreat is 5+ hours or so).

IMO, this is about perfect. People have families. Some members (me, included) work 6 days/week. Taking up an entire Sunday isn’t fair to them, again IMO.

The problem isn’t the length of the meetings. It is a need for structure. We have such a structure, and it works quite well (well, ok, most of the time )

 

[djames99]

Thanks for the information everyone.