Town Meeting Presentation Guidelines Established

Submitted by Betsey Anderson, Town Moderator

These guidelines have been developed to improve the visibility of presentations at Town Meeting.  The goal is that presentations should be able to be read from any location in the auditorium including the back rows.  To accommodate those with visual problems, a few paper copies should also be made available.  PowerPoint is the preferred format for presentations.

Individuals planning to make a presentation at Town Meeting should prepare the presentation in advance and contact the Town Manager’s Office (Assistant Town Manager) prior to Town Meeting to make arrangements for it to be loaded on to the computer that will be used at Town Meeting.  Utilize the notes section in PowerPoint to assist coordinating the slides with the speaker.

Presentation slides should meet the following guidelines:

• Recommended text styles include Arial, Times New Roman and Verdana.
• Title text should be a minimum of 32 point font.
• Bullet text should be a minimum of 28 point font.
• Background color should be white (preferred) or dark.
• Font color should be at the highest possible contrast from the background.  For example, a white background should have black text while a dark background (blue or black) should have white text.

Graphs, charts and maps should have clearly visible titles and limited information on each slide.  Detailed graphs and charts should be available as handouts.

Working with the Assistant Town Manager is essential to an effective presentation.

If at all possible, the presentation should be rehearsed prior to the Town Meeting.  Presentations should meet the debate rule limitations usually adopted at each meeting.  These rules, which may be waived by a vote of the Town Meeting, allow ten minutes for a presentation and five minutes for responses.