Oxford online English-Chair a Meeting 05/29

Part1-Welcoming attendees and starting the meeting

Getting people’s attention

If I could have your attention, please.
Could I have your attention, please?
Good afternoon, everyone.
-> Good afternoon, everyone, could I have your attention, please?

Welcoming attendees

I’d like to welcome you all here today,now let’s get down to business.
Thank you all for coming.Perhaps we can make a start.
Thanks everyone and welcome to today’s meeting. Let’s begin.
-> I’d like to welcome you all here today, my name is Gina and I’m the Marketing Manager, and this is Jon and he’s the head of the design department. Now let’s get down to business.
->Thank you all for coming.My name’s Gina and I’m the Marketing Manager. I’m sure you all know Jon, who’s in charge of design content. Perhaps we can make a start.

Part2-Introducing the topic and outlining the agenda

Today’s meeting is about ____… we’ll talk about ___.
The aim of this meeting is to ____… we’ll go over ___.
In today’s meeting, we’ll cover___

Example: Good morning everyone, if I could have your attention please. I’d like to welcome you all to the meeting today. Let’s begin. The aim of this meeting is to talk about the marketing strategies for the next few months. We’ll go over our budget, goals, and welcome the new hires.

Part3-Getting through the agenda

Introducing your first agenda item

So,let’s start with__
The first item on the agenda is__

Moving between agenda items

I think that covers the first/second/third item.
If nobody has anything else to add, we can continue on to the next item.
Let’s move on to the next item: the marketing budget for these new strategies
Now we come to the main challenge: how to get 100,1000 new contacts in the next few months
The final item on the agenda is to welcome our new hires: James in Finance and Debra in HR

Part4-Inviting attendees to participate

Inviting participation

___, What’s your opinion on this?
___, Would you like to share your thoughts on this question?
___, Could you add anything to our ideas here?

Handing over to another attendee

__, Would you like to introduce this item?
I’d like to turn it over to __ who is going to lead in the next point.
Alright, now __ will have the floor.

Part5-Dealing with distractions and staying on topic

Interrupting politely

Let’s not get too far off-topic here.
We can discuss that at the end if you feel it’s important.
I don’t think that’s relevant to today’s discussion.

Moving a topic to another day

shelve it.
- I think we should shelve that until next time.
table it.
- Good point, but let’s table it until the next meeting.

Part6-Summarizing and concluding the meeting

Summarizing

Before we close,let me just summarize the main points.
To sum up…
In brief…
Shall I go over the main points?
verb: discussed / went over / talked about

Concluding

Ok,it looks like we’ve covered the main items for the meeting today.
Right,that’s all for today’s meeting.
Is there any other business?
Are there any questions before we finish?

Example : To sum up, we discussed using the new internet marketing strategies and cutting the budget by $1,000 next month. We also talked about our new sales goals. Finally, we welcomed James to the company.
Right, that's all for today's meeting.Are there any questions before we finish? No? Great, I’d like to thank Bob, our CEO, for coming here all the way from Beijing. Thank you all for attending. That's all for today.

Practice

Agenda
New teammates welcome
Project development progress update
Annual goal

Attendee
Gina:Project Manager
Jason:Java developer
Mike:Java developer
Alice: UI developer
Lisa: UX

(conference room is noisy)
Gina: Good afternoon, everyone, could I have your attention, please?
(conference room has become quiet)
Gina: Thank you all for coming.My name’s Gina and I’m the Project Manager.Now let’s get down to business. In today’s meeting，we’ll go over our project progress，annual goal and welcome the new hire.
Gina: This month,we have a new colleague