Exeter College

Challenge

With a board of around twenty governors including students, staff members and external members, it is essential that the college can deliver meeting papers to each member in a timely and consistent manner ahead of meetings. Furthermore, the system it uses for this must allow for last minute updates by the administrative team prior to meetings and accommodate for some members working in differing time zones.

Barbara Sweeney, Clerk to the Corporation, Exeter College, comments: “There were two main drivers behind our engagement with MeetingSquared. At a recent annual appraisal, several of our board members, from both the private and public sectors, advised that whilst papers were reaching them in a timely fashion, it could be difficult to access them when working nationally or internationally. This meant they were often unable to review them until they returned to Exeter.

“In addition, if the board member was not at home when we posted the papers out, they might be sent back to the sorting office, which again would cause delays in them being reviewed. “With twenty plus packs being printed for governors and senior management, the printing and postage costs were also a huge concern. We estimated printing and postage costs were around £5,000 – £6,000 each year and by sending these ahead of a meeting, we were risking some of the data, particularly the financials, being out of date by the time the meeting came around.”

Solution

“When looking for alternatives to paper-based documents, we considered electronic solutions, such as PDFs, however these did not give us and our board members the option to annotate notes, unless printed.”

“We also found that some of the other e-solution providers we looked at did not fully meet our data protection requirements. We were recommended eShare by another college and quickly identified that meeting management solution addressed this issue head on. MeetingSquared is an easy to use meeting management app for iPad. The application allows users to access all meeting information, documents and agendas securely. Documents and meeting packs become interactive, allowing board members to make notes whilst on the move. This flexibility allows staff and governors to focus on meaningful activities such as the provision of excellent teaching.

“After just one hour’s training, I was able to set up the online papers and after initially trialling MeetingSquared with the audit committee, alongside having a hard copy of the meeting packs, we found none of the members actually used their hard copy, and really took to using the solution on their iPads. We have been exceptionally pleased with the response we’ve had from users.”

Benefits

Not only has the solution been easy to use, but since integrating MeetingSquared about six months ago, Exeter College is already seeing a number of other benefits too. “The solution has been universally welcomed and one of the biggest benefits is that we’re able to be more green – and make substantial savings on paper and printing costs. It’s also invaluable that we’re able to be more flexible when members are working away from home so they are still able to review and update the papers once they’ve been changed. We can now make last-minute changes, upload and advise members and once refreshed, they can instantly review the latest version.

“Fundamentally, the ability to annotate documents has been crucial, enabling more effective and efficient decision-making,” concludes Sweeney.