Some clarification from a parliamentarian.

Meetings in which you are making decisions (what are called 'deliberative sessions') should follow "parliamentary procedure". These are an agreed upon set of rules that developed over several hundred years, and which are followed by various government bodies (parliaments, congresses, assemblies, etc) as well as private organizations. Even if you don't specify a parliamentary authority in your bylaws, the law does expect that groups WILL follow parliamentary procedure!

There are several enunciations of parliamentary procedure, which are refered to as "parliamentary authorities". The most widely used one in the US is "Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised". Do NOT get one of the various spurions versions out there (including the 'plain english' one). Use RONR. If you need help learning Robert's, get works like "RONR, In Brief", or the Dummies book or get the help of local parliamentary groups. Note that such teaching aids are NOT a replacement for having and using RONR.

Parliamentary procedure doesn't 'fill in the gaps' in your operating documents. They set down how to properly run a meeting, making motions, and the like. MOST OPERATING DOCUMENTS DO NOT COVER THESE THINGS!! IF an organization wants its own rules for these, these are properly called "Special Rules of Order". This is rare and not something I would recommend.

Parliamentary procedure is flexible. If you have a large group (several dozen people, usually a convention of delegates), you will probably need to have additional rules to follow to handle things. If you have a small group (12 or less) you can be more relaxed in the rules. In fact, RONR has a whole chapter on such rules for small boards.

Parliamentary procedure is not about making things difficult to get things done, but to ensure that things are done properly, that people have the chance to discuss matters and come to a decision fairly. It's also not about using trickiery to take advantage of others.

As many groups you will be involved in will (or should) follow parliamentary procedure, its a good idea to learn it. Kind of like trying to play a game and not bothering to learn the rules...

Two groups that can help:
National Assocation of Parliamentarians: http://parliamentarians.org
American Institute of Parliamentarians: http://www.aipparl.org/

(I'm a member of both, and am the president-elect of my local parliamentary club).

hope this helps.

Size doesn't matter!
 

It doesn't matter whether you're a bif or small sorority to use Robert's Rules. In fact, I would consider learning how to properly use RR as a major plus for being in a sorority! Your meetings will run much, much smoother.

Short story: We used Robert's Rules, but our meetings still went much too long - as long as 3 hours! When one of the Traveling Consultants visited, she was floored, and the next thing we knew, we had to have a time keeper at our meetings, to keep them under one hour. I would highly recommend this to any other sorority with a time problem!

There are a couple of ways that parliamentary procedure can help you keep your meetings shorter.

The 'standard rule' in discussions is that each person is allowed to speak twice for 10 minutes on each matter. (this can be shortened or extended by the group by a 2/3rd vote). Discussion needs to be on the matter at hand, not extraneous cr*p. Enforcing that can keep things civil and shorter.

Using committees properly can also help. Instead of discussing in detail each and every event, etc, allow your committees to do that in their own committee meetings outside the main meeting. This way the committees report on the even, with them more or less fully planned out, and the main group hopefully just agrees (or not) on them. Social events would be planned out by your social committee, fundraisers by your fundraising committee, service/philanthropy events by that committee, etc.

Again, this is why learning parliamentary procedure is so important. I encorporated as session on it in my chapters pledge program when I was pledgemaster, something I recommend. Refresher sessions with the membership is always a good idea, also.

That's exactly why using RR properly works so well. Our Minutes read more like Hours. We beat topics into the ground - then we switched to 3 pros/3cons. Everything was planned out and ran like a well-tuned Jaguar!

i see your 3 hour chapter and raise you an 8 hour one :eek: but that meeting we had to vote on by-law revisions, new members and officer elections. on top of that we had just started strictly following roberts rules a few chapters prior so we kept stumbling over procedure. it was grueling.

Jeez, you'll take any little thing just to be contrary.... the parliamentary authority of an organization can and does fill in any gaps that it's documents don't address, particularly with things like elections.

Example: I was asked what the election procedure was for my alumni association. The bylaws don't address it, so I referred the brother to RONR.

During my college years, my chapter supposedly used Roberts....

One year, exec council decided they didn't need to have the position of parliamentarian so they basically had free reign do what they wanted in meetings.

They did follow an agenda and bylaws, but the meetings organization was limited because of the lax use of Roberts.

I am very used to Roberts because I was in Student Government throughout my college years. I was also Parliamentarian some of the time.