Council Meeting Observations

My initial thoughts before I attended the council meeting was that it would be formal but not to the same degree as a court room, and that humour and public participation would be discouraged; however I was wrong.
Upon entering the room a couple of minutes late I was smiled upon by a group of councillors, a clerk, administrator and people of other positions who I could not see. They all sat around a conference like table in the centre of the room, their positions or name was shown on a card in front of each person; the head of the table the chancellor I believe was the driving force behind the motions and the topics of discussion, I assumed my position as the observer on the left side of the seating area allocated for the public. At the back of the room was a lone woman making notes on what was said.

The meeting started with a presentation by two other council members from other parishes. The presentation speaker gave his presentation occasionally referring to a screen with pictures of the local area; which his presentation was about. However a particular observation that I did make was that these two fellow councillors sat in the public seating area beforehand and when their partner was giving the presentation, but not at the table with the other councillors.
Points of the meeting were referred to as item followed by digits, then they were debated or described with a proposal being made; which was then seconded by a member causing it to go to a vote either being favoured or voted against. The word extension I believe was uttered a couple of times but I did not fully understand what it meant. My observations were fairly limited on this part as it was so fast pace it was hard to follow at times. Half way through the meeting a break was offered for ten minutes worth of public participation, but because no one had anything to ask the meeting continued. It followed this pattern for the next hour and half, until the members of the public were asked to leave so that they could discuss the last two points.
At the start of this blog I mentioned my misconceptions, so now I will comment on how I was wrong.To begin with jokes were made between the councillors giving the meeting a light hearted atmosphere, also the warmth and welcoming disposition of the councillors soon washed away any feeling of intimidation I had. Overall I found this experience very educational.