one hour preparation – rule or guideline?

jenny wrote: On my sick bed (I got a virus for Christmas) I have been designing a spiritual adventure game for the next reflective meeting (first Monday in January, which I think is the 6th). The only problem is I have exceeded the one hour preparation time we decided upon, so that it didn’t become a chore to plan meetings.Is this a rule or a guideline? Can we individually choose to ignore this, or will this put pressure on people in the future to do bigger and better things, leading to us all disappearing down the exhausted-alt-worship plug-hole?!

john wrote: From the totally theoretical view of someone who is only a virtual hanger-on to this enterprise…I’d prefer it to be a guideline, because sometimes I really get into something and spend hours on it. When this happens, the preparation is actually a lot of fun, and it’s wrong to place arbitrary limits on having fun However, if one does this, it’s probably a good idea to apologise to the group for breaking the guideline, and promise to do something simpler next time.

bea wrote: What John Said – I think its OK as a guideline, and should be taken as an average over time, so that a particular person can spend more than an hour if they really want to, but should try to do something much simpler that takes only 20-30mins prep next time, to make up for it.