Parliamentary Procedure

We had a business meeting at Church tonight. Such is the way of organizations - meetings need to be held every so often in order to make sure the business is accomplished. Tonight we adopted the budget for the new year and also affirmed three elders. In addition we adopted our Missions Goals for 2004.

One of the things that comes up most often at our meetings is procedure. I am looked to sometimes for the answers only because I have spent a lot of time attending meetings - city council meetings - school board meetings - borough assembly meetings - and various commission and committee meetings. Not all of them are run using Robert's Rules of Order, but all have some form or semblance of order.

And, so, when there is a question, the secretary will sometimes ask me and, if I know the answer, I will let her know. The moderator and I also talk about the various rules.

The most often misused is the Call for the Question. Tonight it was used several times - all incorrectly - but, without any problem or incident. I decided not to argue the point - in the spirit of community and fellowship. Rather, I talked with the secretary and the moderator after the meeting to explain what I thought was the correct procedure for such a motion.

You see, the call was not done in a malicious manner, and nobody was arguing or anything, so why belabor the point publicly?

The proper procedure for such a call is to call for a vote to stop the discussion, which requires a 2/3 vote to be adopted in order for the discussion to be stopped. It takes up unneccessary time, and sometimes causes more tempers to flare than is necessary.

Especially in a church business meeting.

All the moderator needed to do when discussion slowed or stopped (as it did in these cases) was to call for the vote. Saying something like If there is no further discussion, we'll now take the vote. And, that would be that.

He is young - he is not totally comfortable doing this - he is teachable. It's all good.

As was our meeting tonight. I have been in a few over the years, in various church bodies, that were not cohesive and good meetings. That is never fun - it is never good - it most always leads to hurt feelings and, sometimes, to split bodies of believers. I don't think the Lord is happy with that at all. He seldom blesses in those situations.

Anyway - that was my evening - how was yours? It's back to regular schedules tomorrow. The kids go back to school and I go back to work. Yay. Have a great Monday.

Posted by Purplemoose at January 4, 2004 09:27 PM