Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 184, Running a Meeting.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 184.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development.
In beautiful Los Angeles, California.
On today's podcast, we're going to talk about the vocabulary you use when you are running or taking charge of a meeting.
Remember you can get the complete learning guide for this podcast that goes with the podcast that has all of the vocabulary, additional information and the complete transcript on our website.
Now let's begin.
Good morning, everyone.
I believe we are all here.
Please be seated and let's get started.
Please join me in welcoming Olivia Dankst from Garland Corporation.
I'm afraid that Lionel Wu from Manatech can't be with us today, but I'm pleased to welcome representatives from both Danforth and Boyant.
We're here today to discuss the progress of our joint venture project.
Have you all received a copy of the agenda?
Good.
As you can see, there are six items on the agenda.
If there are no objections, I suggest we take the items in order.
Let's start with number one.
I think that takes care of the first item.
Why don't we move on to item number two?
I'd like to hand it over to Olivia, who will take us through the report.
Olivia?
If there are no other issues to discuss, I'd like to wrap up this meeting.
Our next meeting will be Monday, November 20th.
Before we end today, In this podcast we are at a meeting, at a business meeting.
And the person who is speaking is running the meeting.
And the name of the podcast is Running a Meeting.
To run means that you are the person who is in charge.
You are the boss of the meeting.
Well, the meeting begins by me greeting everyone, saying hello to everyone, good morning everyone.
Notice that everyone is used to refer to all of the people there.
Informally, you might say, good morning, guys.
But that's not something you would say in a business meeting.
In a business meeting, you would use something like everyone.
Everyone, can I have your attention?
Or I would like everyone to sit down so we can begin.
In this case, I begin by saying, good morning, everyone.
I believe we are all here, meaning I think everyone who is supposed to be at this meeting is here.
Please be seated and let's get started.
Please be seated, S-E-A-T-E-D, is a nice way, a polite way of asking people to sit down.
You would not want to say, please sit down.
You could, but please be seated is nicer, a little more polite, a little more formal.
Well, the meeting begins with the person running it saying please join me in welcoming Olivia Dankst.
Please join me in.
Welcoming is a way that you are telling everyone else in the meeting that they should welcome, say hello to, or at least realize that there is a new person here.
Please join me in welcoming.
The expression please join me in is used in other situations as well.
Please join me in singing song number 255 in your book.
If you were in church, for example, and the person in front wanted everyone to sing, they may say please join me in singing.
You can use that in a lot of different circumstances.
The verb is always in the ing form, Olivia Donkst is a person that they are welcoming.
She's from a company called Garland Corp., which is not a real company, just a company we used here.
I go on by saying, I'm afraid that Lionel Wu from Manatech can't be with us today.
I'm afraid that is, again, a polite way of saying unfortunately or I'm sorry that.
Someone may ask you, for example, if they can use your car.
And you may say, well, no, I'm afraid that I can't. let you use my car.
I have to leave now.
So I'm afraid that is a nice way of telling someone no, or telling someone that what they want is not possible.
In this case, Lionel Wu from a company called Manatech could not be at the meeting.
The expression we use here is he can't be with us.
To be with someone means to be there, to be present, to be at the meeting.
Well, Mr Wu can't be with us, but he goes on.
I'm pleased to welcome representatives from both Danforth and Boyant.
I'm pleased to welcome is another way of again saying hello, welcoming someone, thanking them for being there.
I'm pleased to welcome representatives.
Representatives here just mean people who work at that company.
These are people who are going to represent the company.
They're going to be the ones that will listen and speak for the company.
The meeting continues by the person saying we're here today to discuss the progress of our joint venture project.
American business meetings usually are or try to be very much what we would say to the point.
To the point means, here's what we're going to do, let's do it, and let's leave after we're done.
Don't want to spend a lot of time talking about other things.
So it's very common for the person beginning the meeting to tell everyone why they are here.
What is the purpose of the meeting?
To remind them of the purpose of the meeting.
So this person begins by saying we're here today to discuss the progress, how well we are doing on our joint venture project.
A venture, V-E-N-T-U-R-E, often means something very similar to a project.
A venture is something that you do, something that you are trying to do.
Usually it is a way of trying to make money.
And in this case it's called a joint venture J-O-I-N-T, because there are different companies working together.
To join, as a verb, means to put together.
So a joint venture would be a business project that different companies work on together in order to make money.
The meeting continues, have you all received a copy of the agenda?
The agenda, A-G-E-N-D-A, is the list of things that they're going to talk about in the meeting.
They are usually in order, so number one, number two, number three.
These are the topics of today's meeting.
Those are on an agenda.
He goes on to say, as you can see, there are six items on the agenda.
An item I-T-E-M is here.
The same as there are six things, there are six topics that we are going to talk about.
If there are no objections.
What we're saying here is if it's okay with everyone here.
If there are no objections means I'm assuming that everyone agrees with me on what we should do.
Of course, if you had an objection, and objection, O-B-J-E-C-T-I-O-N-S, objections plural, means is when you disagree with someone, when you want to say something against the plan or the idea.
That would be an objection.
So if there are no objections means if no one has anything to say that disagrees with me, I suggest we take the items in order.
To take something in order means you start with number one, then you go to number two, then you go to number three.
The opposite of that is to take things out of order.
And out of order means that you may do number one and then you do number five, and then you go back and do number three, and so forth.
Out of order, that expression also means something is broken.
So you may say that your telephone is out of order.
It means it's not working.
It's broken.
Well, in this meeting, which is probably the shortest meeting in the history of business the meeting that we have here is just parts of the meeting
So after the person says I suggest we take the items in order, He says let's start with number one.
But you notice when you were listening that the volume went down.
That's because we're not giving you the whole meeting.
We're giving you just parts of the meeting so you can hear the different kinds of vocabulary.
When the person starts talking again after they've taken care of item number one, which we don't hear He says.
I think that takes care of the first item.
To take care of can have a couple of meanings.
Here it means to handle, to pay attention to, to solve.
I think that takes care of the first item means I think we're done with it.
I think we've talked about what we need to talk about.
To take care of someone can also mean to help them.
Why don't we move on to item number two?
He says, Why don't we move on?
To move on, two words, M-O-V-E-O-N, means continue.
Why don't we stop talking about this item and continue on with the next item?
Sometimes we use that expression when someone is spending too much time on something.
And your boss might say are you still working on that project?
Move on to something else.
There means stop doing that and start something different.
Well, he suggests in our meeting here that we move on to item number two.
He then says I'd like to hand it over to Olivia.
To hand something over to someone means that you are going to let them talk, or let them be the one who is the leader of the meeting, the one who is going to take care of the next section.
So he hands it over to Olivia means Olivia will now talk and not the person running the meeting.
He asks Olivia to take us through the report.
To take someone through something means to go over it with them, means to talk about it in detail, to give them lots of specific information.
If someone says, let me take you through the plan, that means they want to talk to you about each part of the plan and give you more information.
Well, once again the meeting.
We miss a part of the meeting here because Olivia is now going to talk, but we don't hear what Olivia has to say.
Poor Olivia.
Maybe the next dialogue we can hear from Olivia.
The meeting then starts to come to an end.
The person says, if there are no other issues to discuss...
An issue, I-S-S-U-E, here means a topic.
If there's nothing else that anyone wants to discuss.
In saying this, he's really saying to everyone in the meeting if you have something else you want me to talk about or you want us to talk about, you should let me know.
Raise your hand, for example, or tell me right now.
It's a good way of ending a meeting.
If there is nothing else...
And then you may wait a second to see if anyone says anything.
And if they do, then you can talk about that additional item.
He says if there are no other issues to discuss, I'd like to wrap up this meeting.
To wrap up as a verb, W-R-A-P-U-P, in this story means to end.
I'm going to wrap up this meeting means we're going to conclude this meeting.
We're going to stop this meeting.
He announces when the next meeting will be.
He says our next meeting will be on Monday, November 20th.
Before we end today, meaning before we end our meeting, we're not going to stop yet.
I have one more thing.
Before we end today, I'd like to thank all of you for coming.
This has been a very productive meeting.
To be productive means to get a lot of work done, to do a lot of work in a short amount of time.
That's to be productive.
That's something that I am not very good at.
I am not very productive.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a native rate of speech.
Good morning, everyone.
I believe we are all here.
Please be seated and let's get started.
Please join me in welcoming Olivia Dankst from Garland Corp.
I'm afraid that Lionel Wu from Manatech can't be with us today, but I'm pleased to welcome representatives from both Danforth and Buoyant.
We're here today to discuss the progress of our joint venture project.
Have you all received a copy of the agenda?
Good.
As you can see, there are six items on the agenda.
If there are no objections, I suggest we take the items in order.
Let's start with number one.
I think that takes care of the first item.
Why don't we move on to item number two?
I'd like to hand it over to Olivia, who will take us through the report.
Olivia?
If there are no other issues to discuss, I'd like to wrap up this meeting.
Our next meeting will be Monday, November 20th.
Before we end today, I'd like to thank you all for coming.
This has been a very productive meeting.
The script for today's podcast was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
That's all we have time for today.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2006.
