Minutes of No Consequence
Three hours of eloquence, unanimously resolved to be discussed again
The Committee for the Correction of Everything convened at ten, though whether it had in fact convened remained, for some hours, a matter of vigorous dispute.
As Recording Secretary, I was instructed to the proceedings faithfully, which is to say, to make a permanent record of events carefully arranged never to occur.
The sole item on the , circulated in triplicate, was a question of some delicacy: namely, whether a meeting ought to be held at all.
The Chair opened by observing that to debate whether to meet was itself a meeting, a paradox he proposed we resolve by referring it to ourselves.
Councillor Prewitt rose to move that the motion be tabled, then sat, then rose again to move that his previous sitting be struck from the record as procedurally premature.
It was noted, in the passive voice favoured by all present, that mistakes had been made, though by whom, and of what kind, it was thought to specify.
A point of order was raised regarding whether points of order could be raised before it had been agreed that a meeting was taking place.
The Chair ruled the point both in order and out of order, and directed that both rulings be recorded, so that posterity might choose.
We then entered what the termed a period of robust and frank exchange, a phrase understood by everyone to mean that nothing frank would be exchanged.
Councillor Adeyemi warned that failure to act decisively would send precisely the wrong signal, without specifying the signal, the recipient, or the action.
Her intervention was greeted with the murmur of assent that committees reserve for statements too vague to oppose.
The Treasurer inquired whether meeting, or not meeting, carried the greater cost, and was assured that a working group would be struck to cost both.
By eleven, a had begun to emerge that a should, at some point, be sought.
Councillor Prewitt, reversing himself with the ease of long practice, now argued passionately for the very delay he had earlier deplored.
I recorded his words , which is the secretary's revenge: to preserve, exactly, what a man would most like to be misremembered as having said.
At the stroke of noon, the Chair observed that we had achieved a great deal, and that the nature of the achievement could be determined later.
It was moved, seconded, and amended beyond recognition, that the question of whether to meet be itself referred to a future meeting.
An amendment to the amendment proposed that the future meeting be one whose purpose was to decide whether the present meeting had been necessary.
The Chair, sensing momentum, called for a vote, having first reminded us that would be recorded as a form of courageous engagement.
The motion carried unanimously, there being no one present sufficiently awake to object, and several, I suspect, insufficiently present to be awake.
Thus it was resolved that the Committee would, at its next sitting, deliberate whether the sitting then concluding ought ever to have begun.
I asked the Chair how I should a meeting convened to discuss whether meetings should be convened.
He advised me to write that the Committee had met productively, and to leave the word productively undefined, as a courtesy to future readers.
In the margin of the minutes, where no one but I would look, I recorded the single fact of which I was certain: that three hours had passed, and would not return.
The petition that had summoned us — some , I gathered, about a pavement — was not reached, not read, and, by , not remembered.
As the members filed out, congratulating one another on their restraint, I understood that the true function of a committee is to convert time into paper.
I signed the minutes, dated them, and filed them under Matters Arising, a heading beneath which, in this Committee, all things eventually and permanently arise.