Articles written By Our Cat Herder

The Optimal Timeline for Board Pack Delivery

How to make sure you deliver board packs with enough time before the upcoming meeting for directors to effectively read and asses the information within.

What is the purpose of a board pack?

The purpose of a board pack is to provide directors with crucial info to carry out duties, make informed decisions advancing the organisation. A quality pack blends procedural information with infromative insights for sound governance and strategy guidance.

Effective Board Packs: The Complete Guide

Board packs are intended to empower directors. Learn how to create effective board packs with must-have contents, quality over quantity, timely delivery, easy navigation, tailored information, and transparency.

Company Secretary Playbook: Which Executives should attend Board Meetings?

Explore best practices on structuring board meetings and executive staff presence to balance transparency and oversight. From limiting attendees to sequencing agenda strategically and setting participation norms to optimise information flow while preserving board independence.

Company Secretary Playbook: How to Reduce the Size of Board Packs

Learn how to cut down large, bloated board packs to create focused, strategic materials that actually inform directors. Expert tips on getting board buy-in, conducting a content audit, setting a page limit, leveraging a board portal, removing granular details, distributing updates between meetings, adopting templates, spreading out recurring items, holding pre-meetings, limiting distribution, and continuously refining. Create concise board packs that enable excellent governance through engaged directors making data-driven decisions.

Action Items

Action Item Definition: An action item is a specific task or deliverable that is assigned to a designated owner during a board meeting. Action items drive accountability and ensure priorities discussed get translated into concrete next steps that can be executed after the meeting concludes. Why are action items important? Action items play an integral role in maximising the output and follow-through from board meetings. They provide clarity around who is responsible and accountable for what coming out of the meeting.

Three Essentials of Successful Meetings

Discover why successful meetings require three key elements - a clear agenda, detailed minutes, and assigned action items. Learn how these components work together to provide structure, documentation, and accountability. Find out why meetings drift without agendas to set goals, minutes to capture discussions, and concrete next steps to drive progress between sessions. Read how technology can help optimise workflows around agendas, collaborative minutes, and robust action item tracking.

Company Secretary Playbook: Effective Board Meetings

A detailed guide for company secretaries on how to effectively plan and execute board meetings. This guide emphasises the importance of strategic governance, robust board papers, action item tracking, and timely minute documentation. It also highlights the role of the company secretary in facilitating focused discussions, ensuring smooth logistics, preparing presenters, and driving continuous improvement.

7 Tips for Improving Your Golf Club's Governance

Discover 7 key strategies to enhance your golf club’s governance. From defining roles and responsibilities, fostering strong communication, regular training, using a board portal, updating policies, member engagement, to emphasising accountability. Make your golf club more efficient, transparent and effective.

A Board Portal for Independent and Catholic Schools

Bursars and Business Managers navigate a multitude of complex operations. Why Board Management Software Matters Managing a school board without the right tools in place can quickly become an exercise in frustration. Endless emails, scattered documents, lack of transparency, and missed deadlines are common issues. Board members become disengaged if the administrative burdens make participation difficult. Investing in a purpose-built system like Our Cat Herder transforms how your board functions.