The Rare Case of the Interesting Committee Meeting

Yesterday, I went to a university committee meeting that was actually enjoyable. I am well and truly hornswoggled.

The thing is, university committee meetings are usually either very dull tedious affairs that go on for hours, or very interesting because there is a lively argument going on between some or all of the participants. Either way, you get sent a ton of paperwork beforehand, and whether or not you get the bunfight depends on whether someone spotted the bombshell thrown in on page 122 of the seventeenth document of the paperwork and tosses the relevant grenade into the middle of the meeting.

This meeting was different! There was no paperwork beforehand, only an agenda. The meeting had a focus on interesting topics, and people could swap tips as well as express views that could be taken up by higher-up management committees within the University. There was actually a genuine sense of "This is interesting; I would like to know more." on many of the topics discussed. This could have been because it was off-the-record, and the discourse even included various blue words tossed around carefully to amusing effect.