M: Please let me see the draft of what you have put together for Monday's meeting.
F: I'm still working on the agenda, there will be a lot to go over on Monday. Here's what I've got so far.
M: Do you think we will spend more than twenty minutes in the opening? I think it should be pretty simple.
F: It shouldn't take too long, but there will be a lot of dignitaries at the meeting. In the opening exercises, it is protocol to spend a little time to recoginise them. I reckon it should take about half an hour before we can even get to the minutes.
M: Really? Well, at least the minutes shouldn't take too long to review. There shouldn't be a lot of active business left over from last meeting.
F: True. After review and acceptance of the minutes, we have several committee reports. Old business won't take up too much time, but sometimes the committee delegates can be a little verbose… Is there where we can limit their time?
M: We can set a five minute report time with a three minute question and answer afterwards.
F: That's not good. Q&A always stretch out the time, because people usually get stuck on some irrelevent point, we'll lose control of the meeting if we open it up to questions too early.
M: True. Well, imposing an eight minute limit on the committee reports then, we'll save Q&A until right before closed session.
F: Sounds good. Overall, we can probably keep the meeting under two hours.
M: Let's hope!
譯文：
請讓我看下你起草的週一會議議程安排.
我還在弄會議議程,週一要有很多事情要做.這是我目前已經完成的部分.
你認爲我們開幕式發言需要20多分鐘嗎?我認爲應該非常簡短.
是不應該花很長時間,但是會上有很多高管出席.開幕式上,從禮節上講需要花點兒時間讓大家認識下他們.我計算過應該需要半個小時左右才能進入會議紀律環節.
真的嗎?那好吧,至少不要花太多時間評議會議記錄.上次會議之後應該沒有留下太多的後續工作.
是這樣.在評議和接受會議記錄後,我們還有幾份委員會的`報告要看.遺留問題不會佔太多時間,但有時委員會代表會很囉嗦…有沒有辦法限制一下他們的時間?
我們可以設定報告時間爲5分鐘,隨後是3分鐘的問答時間.
這樣不好.問答總會拉長時間,因爲人們通常會就無關的論點說個沒完.如果我們會上過早讓大家提問,我們會失控的.
確實如此.那我們給委員會報告限定8分鐘,這樣把問答時間拖到會議結束之前.
這樣還不錯.總的來說,我們很可能把會議控制在兩小時之內.
希望如此!
