From your description, the meetings/process sounds tactical. Strategic discussions would cover material more like:
http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml

Strategic planning (to me) is closely linked to your business model (revenues and costs to get those revenues). Once that has been defined, 80% of the strategic planning is determined.

I believe strategic planning has developed such an aura because the McKinsey’s of the world have marketed it’s importance to sell their services. Don’t get me wrong, strategy is important, but it’s set very early in a firms existence and rarely changed.

To illustrate strategy’s importance, it’s often point out that if WWII was about successfully executing tactics, the Germans would have easily won. The Allies and Russia in particular had a better strategy, even though there tactics had problems and horrifically high costs. (Especially for the Russians.)

Meetings every 6 months may well be more meaningful and effective, but is the purpose fundamentally strategic or tactical?

Its important that you understand the purposes and differences between the two, whatever you call them.

Andy