Agenda is a written official document of programme of business to be transacted at a forthcoming meeting. Simply put, it is a list of items to be discussed in the forthcoming meeting. It is also called Business. Agenda is a planning tool with which one controls the meeting. It states the order and the nature of business to be transacted at a meeting. It is drafted by the secretary in consultation with the chairperson. A copy of agenda is enclosed with the notice of the meeting and sent in advance to all the members to attend a meeting.

Preparing agenda is a very useful practice.

a) If it is circulated in advance, it helps the members to come prepared for the meeting.
b) Since agenda has a set order, it helps the chairperson to conduct the meeting smoothly.
c) It gives direction to the meeting by ensuring that every point is properly taken up for discussion and only matters relevant to that particular meeting are discussed
d) It facilitates the preparation of the minutes.

The order of the items on the agenda cannot be changed during the course of the meeting except with the consent of the members. The chair must take great care to decide the order in which the items are put on the agenda, especially if there are likely to be controversies over any item. It is desirable to have urgent and non-controversial items first though the items should be arranged in their order of importance. Each item is numbered and it gives the number of the meeting also if the meeting is in series. For example - if the meeting number is three then the agenda item will show the number as - 3.01, 3.02, etc. where 3 stands for the number of the meeting and 01 states the first item on the agenda for the third meeting. Agenda is prepared for each meeting separately.

An effective agenda includes enough information to enable participants to come prepared to the meeting to conduct the business efficiently and in the desired manner. Scheduled programme helps the members to avoid meaningless and irrelevant discussions.

If the agenda is in continuation with the notice for the meeting then only the business to be transacted is indicated in it because all other information and details will be there in the notice. If the agenda is given as an enclosure / attachment to a notice then it contains the following points
Name and address of the organization
Day, date, time and venue of the meeting to be convened

Confirmatun of the minutes of the previous meeting

The programme of the business to be transacted / various items to be discussed Any other item with the permission of the chair

The minutes of the previous meeting have to be approved before any matter related to the current meeting is taken up. If there are issues regarding the decisions taken in the previous meeting then they need to be discussed before the agenda for the current meeting is taken up for discussion.

Next meeting

Signature and name of the authority/chair

There are two ways of writing the points in the agenda i) In the form of noun, for example

• Appointment of sub-committees for various events

• Proposal to open a gymnasium

• Membership drive

• Fund collection

  ii) With an infinitive verb, for example

• To appoint a sub-committee for various events

•  To consider a proposal to open a gymnasium

•  To organize a membership drive

• To collect funds

It is a usual practice to fix the date of the next meeting before the current meeting ends

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