"The best laid plans. . etc."  I n addition to the recent move, various follow-ups have kept me scrambling for time the last couple of days.

However, back to basics (my experience) regarding workshops. 1) Set a time and start on time.   2) Everybody signs in.  Each writes name, the title of what he/she will read, and the number of pages. When I get the sign-in book and open the meeting by callon on the first to sign in, I note the number of pages to be read by that person and subsequent readers.   This enables me to judge how much time allow for critique. 3) the first person to comment on the reader's work is the person to his or her left.  (This is not a hard-and-fast rule but be consistent.)

RE: comments.  It is o.k. to say "I pass." unless you can think of something that will improve the reader's story/article.  Or suggest a market. As a leader I have had to manage many times the situation in which  the person commenting–rather than speaking about the manuscript just heard–will recount an experience of his own that the reader's work reminded him of. Often, I have to interrupt this evaluator, asking specifically  what he/she thought of the Ms just heard and/or encouraging him/her to set his similar experience to paper.    

Keep your group concentrating on helping each other.  I have found that these groups form bonds of friendship as well as being  dependent on one anoither for help in improving their writing, titles, leads. Stay tuned.  Willma