Sometimes not all board members can attend the meeting due to work or other commitments.  This is especially likely to happen with organisations that are located in rural or remote locations.  Distance can make it difficult for all board members to physically attend the meeting.

When this occurs and your board member is an apology for the event, you are not only missing out on their expertise and input but key decisions may not be able to be made due to not having a quorum for the meeting.

With a bit of advance planning and the use of technology you can manage these circumstances so they still will allow to board meeting to occur.

For example, you could easily arrange for a conference call to take place as well as using a web based conference facility.

By doing a quick Google search you can find details of many services that are available that are relative in expensive and in some cases are free.

These web based conference facilities allow for documents to be easily shared and discussed as well as allow video through the use of a web cam.

In addition to using your desktop computer or laptop, many of these services can be used on mobile devices such as iPads and smart phones.

While this may not be the ideal way to run your board meetings it does allow the board to continue to function, manage and discharge its governance function.  The other benefit of using this technology is that it can be easily accessed and set up on fairly short notice.