Association Membership Step-by-Step
Sorry for the extended break. I had meant to take a little bit of a break through a particularly busy time, but it ended up being a little longer than I had anticipated. One of my projects during this break, however, is to continue to work on a book idea that I have had for [...]
To Church Leaders: Read This Concerning Your Meetings
I came across an article entitled “On Process: Finding Ways to Make Progress as a Community” by Neil de Koning that focused on what Christians should strive after in their meetings. It is so good that I will not make any comment, except to highlight the article’s main points. Instead, just go read it. On [...]
Should Assemblies Hold Parliamentarians Accountable?
In an interesting article on how one university student government is restructuring itself, I read this section on the new procedure appointing the parliamentarian: The Parliamentarian who is in charge of running meetings and ensuring the Assembly follows parliamentary procedure and Robert’s Rules of Order, will no longer be appointed by the SGA President. The [...]
When Statutory Law Spoils All the Fun…
In an ideal world, all associations would employ both a professional parliamentarian and an attorney. As I have written about elsewhere, parliamentarians and attorneys take different approaches and work toward different goals. An attorney’s goal is compliance with statutory law; a parliamentarian’s goal are productive, efficient, and fair meetings and organizational structures. This, of course, [...]
In Case You Have Always Wondered About Committee of the Whole…
This “Nerditorial” has a great explanation. The bottom line is that a Committee of the Whole takes the entire assembly and turns it into one big committee. This means that everyone can speak as many times as they wish, but the final decision arrived at during the deliberation of the Committee of the Whole is [...]
Filibuster Friday
Happy Friday! I came across this interesting article, which argues that Senate leaders need to begin work on phasing out the filibuster: So it seems the Senate paralyzed itself. Well, the Senate can unparalyze itself, too. Not right away, but after a time. And they should, if we’re not to become a failed state, unable [...]
Everybody Hates (And Loves!) Parliamentary Procedure
Last month, I tried to evaluate the political landscape concerning health care reform with an post titled, “Everybody Hates Democracy,” where I argued that people primarily care about polls and vote counts to get their way, not to seek some kind of theoretical wisdom of the people. I’m not sure how I missed this, but [...]