AgendaQuick

The idea of going paperless at council and commission meetings sounds great, but the practicalities of actually doing it often get in the way.

For many organizations, going paperless involves providing laptops to the members, setting up the network, training the members on how to; log on – load the document – find the document - store their notes – etc, etc, etc.  With some members, the thought of using a laptop or computer can be a traumatic event and cause some to demand their old paper copies.

But there is an alternative that’s gaining ground - electronic books or e-readers.  They offer big advantages over laptops such as size, weight, ease of reading, ease of use and cost.  For many users of e-readers the experience is really like reading a book, just a little more high-tech.

From AgendaQuick, your agenda packets can be loaded on to these devices in the form of a PDF and, depending on the device, even allow comments and notes to be added by the reader.  The training required to use the device is minimal and the ongoing support and maintenance from your IT department is also a lot less than a computer or laptop.

Some of the devices you may have heard about are: Amazon’s Kindle line of e-readers, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Que from Plastic Logic and the iPad from Apple.  Costs per unit vary a bit but are generally in the $300 to $800 range depending on options.

If going totally paperless is ultimately your goal, e-readers may be worth a closer look.

One of the biggest advantages to an electronic agenda management system is the potential streamlining of your entire agenda process.  In other words, use the software as reason to re-think how you create, prepare, publish and distribute your agendas in order to take advantage of the more efficient options available to you.

For lots of reasons, we’re often asked to replicate the current agenda and minutes process clients have been using.  Maybe it’s a comfort thing or perhaps tradition dictates the process.  We understand this and designed AgendaQuick so that we could in fact give folks exactly what they did have – only better.  However, it’s when they start thinking about newer, better ways of doing things that the software really starts to perform.

Agenda automation when fully utilized is a beautiful thing.  It saves time, hassle & money.  So sit back, put on your thinking cap and put together your own version of the perfect agenda system.  Then call us and we’ll help you  build it.

OK, chocolate has nothing to do with managing the minutes process, but what if you had a minutes management system that made you feel almost as good?

The terrific thing about an integrated system for agenda/minutes management (like AgendaQuick) is that the minutes feature automatically incorporates the information from the agenda into your minutes template.

The process of preparing your minutes becomes a lot easier by eliminating the ‘cut & paste’ of going from the agenda to your minutes template.

Minutes templates can be set up beforehand to further reduce the amount of effort spent.  Shortcuts for recording motions and votes as well as the ability to quickly make last minute changes means less work and more time for life’s simple pleasures – like chocolate…

What exactly does it cost to produce an agenda?

 Well, it depends…

 Agendas come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they consist of a dozen agenda items and maybe 100 to 200 pages of supporting documents.  Other times they may have 80+ items and over 2000 pages of documents.

 But they all share common characteristics and we can calculate a fairly reliable rule of thumb based on a few assumptions.

 To begin, paper & copying costs will average about $.05 per page.  That’s a nickel for every single sheet of paper used in your packets.

 You’ll also need to factor in the time for copying and collating the packets.  Depending upon who is actually standing at the copy machine and doing the collating, this cost could vary dramatically.  Often, this is an all-day event for one person.

 Distribution costs go into the mix as well.  Who actually delivers the packets, how many are mailed and how the packet is delivered to the local media all must be considered and calculated.  Even if you use your patrol officers to deliver packets to council members and others, the time and cost of this service should be figured.   

 Alright already, so how much does it cost?

 Generally, you can figure that if you produce 2-3 agendas per month, your annual costs will equal $1,000 times the average number of packets you produce each meeting.  In other words, if your city or county meets 2 to 3 times per month and you produce an average of 25 packets for each meeting, your annual costs would be about $25,000.

 If you meet weekly, you can use $1,500 per packet and if you meet once a month, $500 works out to be about right.

One of the larger cities in the South we spoke with recently spent over $90,000 last year producing the 60 packets for their weekly meetings.  A mid-sized city in the Northwest producing 18 packets every other week spent about $19,000.  As rules go, we’d have to give this one a big “thumbs up”!