Minutes of the previous meeting

Welcome to this week's meeting of the Task Force on Selecting a Special Committee to Study the Impact of the Profusion of Task Forces, Committees, and Working Groups on Campus (TFSSCSIPTFCWGC). I'd like to call this meeting to order, except someone stole the gavel so I'll just pound on the table with my colleague's cranium.

First order of business: minutes of the previous meeting. Do I hear a motion to approve? Yes, Norton, we've all heard your argument that minutes are an arbitrary human construct, but at the moment we have no procedure for faculty members to declare themselves "conscientious objectors" to the taking of minutes, so unless you'd like to form a subcommittee to study the possibility of formulating such a procedure, it's a moot point.

What's that? You'd be happy to form such a subcommittee? But where would the Subcommittee to Study the Possibility of Formulating a Procedure for Declaring One's Conscientious Objection to Minutes (SSPFPDOCOM) fit into our established committee structure? We'd better send that proposal over to the Special Working Group on Study the Structure and Function of Campus Committees (SWGSSFCC).

Now back to the minutes: Do I hear a motion to approve? No, Thom, you can't propose an amendment until the motion is seconded. Do I heard a second? Thank you, Thom, and now what's your problem with the minutes? Item three? Well you may claim that item three misrepresents your comments at the previous meeting, but it sounds accurate enough to me. I have reason to recall your describing the Chair of this committee as a "noddle-headed wombat," which struck me at the time as a serious redundancy verging upon solecism. No, I reject your move to strike the word "solecism" from the secretary's notes; "noddle" clearly refers to the back of the head, so "noddle-headed" is redundant, and if you don't believe me, let us adjourn to the library to consult the Oxford English Dictionary.

Very well then, if you insist: a motion has been moved and seconded to amend the minutes of last week's meeting to replace the phrase "noddle-headed wombat" with "mistaken," which doesn't even work grammatically but let that go. All in favor say aye. All opposed same sign.

A tie! How rarely chairs are permitted to exercise the right to cast the deciding vote! I vote against the amendment. Noddle-headed wombat remains.

Any further discussion of the minutes? Yes, Steffi, we did discuss the proposal to reduce class time by fourteen minutes per credit hour in order to open up more time for committee meetings, but as you will recall, there was some debate about whether 14 minutes would make enough of a difference. As the minutes reflect, Norton issued his usual objection to the hegemonic imposition of anthropocentric measurements of time and Greg pounded the table and insisted upon 17 minutes, but no, we did not vote down the proposal but agreed to send it for further study to the--wait, there's an error here: the minutes say we sent it to the Task Force on Saving Time in a Bottle (TFSTB), but I'm certain we sent it to the For Every Thing There Is A Season Working Group (FETTIASWG).

Do I hear a motion to amend? What's that, Norton? Time is up? I thought you didn't believe in time? What, faculty happy hour begins in five minutes?

Meeting adjourned!