Do any of you have a person in your meeting rooms who tries to take over? Who talks too much? Our leader has done a good job trying to distract her and comes right out says "let's give other people a chance..." but this person keeps on talking. She either doesn't get it or is ignoring the comments and one can only guess might have some issues. Some days it is annoying. Now she says she wants to be a leader herself. I can't go on any other days. What are my options? What have you seen happen in your meetings? How common is this? Thank you.

Lucky for you, this is an issue that the leaders have to deal with, not you. If you get some of the other people together, and talk to the leaders about how irritating this is for everybody, they are going to have to think of something, so they don't lose you all as clients. Perhaps they can hold the personal success stories until the end, and you can all leave when the yapper starts to talk. Is there another WW meeting nearby you can go to on the same night.
This never happens at my meetings. Everybody is pretty quiet and shy, and the leaders have to nudge us into saying anything. "Mary, didn't you lose 3 lbs this week?" "Well, yeah.."
It's too bad this person takes the fun away. Probably she is lonely, or new to town. What would happen if you went out for coffee with her before the meeting? (Take some other people, so it's not just you.)

The meeting I go to has a similar situation. One member arrives late, monopolizes the meeting with her successes/opinions/needs/unrelated-to-weight-loss stories, then, when the meeting (which is running late at this point) gets back to topic or other people finally get to share, she gets up and leaves!

However, she doesn't bother me as much as the two people who have had private conversations during the last two meetings. It's a small room so even murmuring is distracting. Our leader gives it her best shot to rein them in, but she hasn't been too successful.

I admit I'm tempted to sit next to them so I can intervene myself, but I'll probably continue to keep as far from them as possible!

I have to agree that really the leader needs to deal with it, but they can't deal with what they don't know about. I am sure that you don't want to offend, but if it hinders your ability to work on your success than it needs to be addressed. GL!



Mindy

its definitely the leaders problem. i went to the same 2 meetings for 10 years with the same leader&we had a lady who did all of the above and more unfortunately. she musta been psycho. i just ignored her myself, but the leader who became like family eventually confided in me and my mom that she was freaked out b/c this same woman was actually stalking her in EVERY meeting she did all week long. i felt so bad for her. have you complained to the ppl@the 800 number?