Robert's Rules
 

Does your organization go by Robert's Rules? Do you use them loosely or strictly follow them?

1. Yes
2. Strictly

1. Yes
2. Strictly

Addendum: If you don't understand Robert's Rules, purchase the little book, Robert's Rules in Plain English...

Thanks for the advice, but I had to take a seminar in highschool that was on Robert's Rules, plus I have Robert's RUles for Dummies. Thanks!

Your organization's Constitution and Bylaws (or just bylaws) are the supreme governing documents of your organization. Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR) is a parliamentary authority -- it is meant to fill in the gaps that your C & B (and Standing Rules, if you have them) do not spell out.

I am saying all this to get across that RONR is not to be used as a weapon, but as a reference, and if your bylaws say otherwise, RONR cannot be used to contradict them.

RONR does trump "tradition" and "that's how we've always done it" however, your bylaws MUST list RONR as a parliamentary authority in order to use it as a reference.

Always have an RONR at meetings and if you need a simpler reference, use Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised in Brief. Because of expired copyrights and such, Robert's Rules is used for a lot of different publications, so don't be fooled when purchasing one for yourself or your org.

To actually answer your question:

1) My APO collegiate chapter has its own standing rules for meetings, but I believe uses RONR as the parliamentary authority.

2) Both of my APO alumni associations use RONR and are pretty lenient depending on the will of the group, but whenever I am the chair, I do things by the book.

3) My APhiA chapter....eh.... it's not as strict as it should be, but they never seem to need to make any actual decisions at chapter meetings, since we have a standard program that we follow.

We try to go by Robert's Rules, but many officers aren't familiar with it. Definitely get the plain English version like AKA Monet suggested. You'll find that you won't end up using most of the "rules" very frequently. Those that are used most commonly will be easy to fit into your routine.

A. Yes.
B. Strictly (when I was there).

In most organizations to which I belong, I end up being Parlimentarian. :D

1. Yes
2. Loosely, but we want to strictly. We're going to try out a parlimentarian this semester....

Strictly when I was there. Loosely in alumni meetings.

We even use Robert's Rules in house corp meetings.

Yeah, we follow them fairly strictly. Most of the other organizations I'm in on campus follow Robert's Rules of Order as well.

We follow them strictly. When I was chapter president, KSigRC (my VP) was our Rules expert, so it made things a lot easier.

1. yes.
2. loosely, but its a big improvement from what we used to do. at first we started being super strict, but only a handful of people new what was going on and come time to vote people would just blindly vote bc they got so turned around with roberts rules.

most of the general members are slowly getting the hang of it now but it took about a year to get used to it.

We're a group of about 20 (I know that's like, extra-small for a sorority, but we don't have school recognition). I sometimes feel like Robert's Rules should need to be strictly enforced because there is so much interrupting, talking out of turn, etc, but in general, I feel like this would be really restrictive since we're so small. Thoughts?

Numbers don't matter! The problems you have at meeting are exactly why you need to use Robert's Rules. I think transitioning to more structured meeting may be difficult since some girls will likely resist, but once you do you'll see your meetings taking less time and becoming more effective. I'm a big believer in "The more you run your sorority like a business, the more it feels like a sorority."