Meetings, meetings, meetings

Last week was a blur of meetings- I attending education policy meetings and workshops in Manila, Cebu and Manila. While the crack of dawn flights were not fun, it was great to hear about some of the new initiatives in schools and to meet some of the movers and shakers in the education sector here.

The meetings were mostly in "Taglish"- a combination of Tagalog and English which made it hard for me to follow what was going on. The bonus of not being able to understand the content meant I got to focus on the cultural nuances and etiquette involved in holding a meeting in the Philippines. Here are a few things I learned:

- You have to have banner- that's a big banner welcoming participants and displayed somewhere prominently.

- Start the meeting with some pomp and ceremony. Usually this means playing the National Anthem and often an invocation.

- Food is VERY important. In fact it seems more important than the speakers and presentations! You must have at least 5 meals a day – in addition to the three main meals you have two “meriendas” (snack breaks). Participants will rarely complain about the content of the meeting but they will complain about the quality of the food.

- Beeps are ok. Meetings are constantly punctuated by the beep of text messages which no-one except me seemed to find frustrating. Participants seem to have one eye on the presenter and one on their phone leaving me to wonder just how much is being heard.

- No meeting starts on time. Rather it work on what I like to call “Filo time””, a very relaxed concept of time where everything starts at least 30 mins late. The only exception seems to be the meal breaks!