English for Meetings: Closing

You are now an expert at conducting a meeting in English….. almost.  There is one last piece of the puzzle to consider: the ending.  After you have completed the agenda, reached consensus and achieved your goals, how do you end?  “goodbye”   “see ya later”   “the end”???  Not quite.

Here are a few English expressions that can end your meeting on a good note:

Summarising

• Before we close, let me summarise the main points.
• Shall I go over the main points of the meeting?
• Okay, let’s summarise
• So, to sum up…
• Let me recap

Closing Words

• We’ve had some great ideas
• We’ve made a lot of progress
• Good work everyone.
• Thank you all for your input

Example Dialogue:

• Chairperson:     Before we close, let me summarise the main points. We have met our sales goals for this quarter.  Projections for next quarter are for a 5% increase.  Jane’s team will provide us with the new marketing strategy at the next meeting.  Good work everyone.  Thank you all for your input.  We’ve had some great ideas and made a lot of progress.  I wish you all a good day.

Check out the other units in the English for Meetings Workshop. In each section you will find standard English phrases that you can mix, match and adapt to your specific content.