Robert's Rules QuickStart Guide: The Simplified Beginner's Guide to Robert's Rules

Contents

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Introduction

| 1 | Setting Up for Success

Calling the 1st Organizational Meeting

Electing Temporary Officers During the 1st Meeting

The Resolution for a Permanent Association

Your Organization Needs Bylaws ASAP

Wrapping Up

| 2 | Building Your Bylaws

The Power is Yours!

The Importance of Rules

The Difference Between Bylaws & Rules of Order

Bylaws are Serious Business

What Bylaws Can & Must Cover

Robert’s Rules Bylaw Recipe

Robert’s Rules Should Not be Easy to Change

Bringing in a Pro Parliamentarian

| 3 | Making the Most of Your Meetings

The Basics of a Meeting

Regular Meetings

Special Meetings

Adjourned Meetings

Annual Meetings

Executive Sessions

More on Quorums

Failing to Make Quorum, What Options Do You Have?

Setting an Agenda

| 4 | The Art of the Motion

A Motion is a Motion is a Motion : Not Exactly

Motions in Action

| 5 | Ways to Create Great Committees

Appointing a Committee Chairman

Examples of Standing Committees

Special Committees

Establishing Committee Membership

Meeting with Your Committee

| 6 | A Parliamentary Procedure SAMPLE

Order of Business

The Role of the Chairman

Responsibilities of the Chair

Responsibilities of the Secretary

Common Mistakes : Using Parliamentary Language

Four Motions that are Always out of Order

Conclusion

Glossary

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Terms displayed in bold italic can be found defined in the glossary.

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Introduction

There’s surely a reason that meetings are often synonymous with wasted time, frustration, annoyance, and dread. Consider this hypothesis: we are disillusioned with meetings because they should, in theory, be useful, vibrant, and enlightening, but too often, in practice, they prove anything but. Humans make the mistake of thinking that language development makes us different from animals. It really bums us out to find that, even with our complex brains and our capacity to verbally crystallize our ideas, we still find ourselves talking past one another, unable to listen and unable to effectively integrate our good ideas together into a whole greater than its parts.

The sad truth is that when too many big brains are in one room, they’re likely to suffer wasteful clashes of ego when they should be bursting at the seams with brilliant ideas. Ineffective meetings make us cynical. They ridicule our belief in teamwork and reinforce the unhealthy belief that we can’t trust anyone but ourselves when it comes to getting stuff done—truly a toxic outlook in a cooperative work environment. We’re disillusioned with meetings because they dangle the prospect of progress in our faces, before quickly exposing the pettiness and frailty of the human ego. Successful organizations and businesses don’t thrive on cynicism, they suffer from it. So what’s to be done?

US Army Colonel Henry Martyn Robert created the Robert’s Rules of Order as a guidebook in the late 19th century. Its original title was Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies.

Note : Robert’s Rules of Order is now in its 11th incarnation as of 2011, and its formal title is Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised 11th Edition.

Colonel Robert’s purpose was to derive an everyday methodology from formal parliamentary procedure. Since its inception, Robert’s Rules of Order has become synonymous with formal parliamentary procedure. Be that as it may, the original pocket manual—though modeled after the rules used in the US House of Representatives—was intended for bodies much less formal. In fact, the impetus for the creation of Robert’s Rules of Order was a public meeting held at the most humble of venues, a church.

Upon being asked to preside over this meeting, it occurred to Colonel Robert—then 26 years of age— that he was at a complete loss for procedural know-how. Nonetheless, as legend has it², he tried to wing his way through the meeting much to his own chagrin and embarrassment. After enduring the humiliation of presiding over a civic body without experience, Colonel Robert vowed never again to return to such a post until he’d taken the time to learn about parliamentary procedure.

Robert’s autodidactic pursuit, however, would soon grow legs when he realized how badly a unified, written body of meeting procedure was needed. As a military man, the Colonel regularly toured various locales throughout the country and discovered that the guidelines followed during formal meetings varied tremendously from place to place. Vividly seeing the need for a standardized authority on a layman’s parliamentary procedure, Colonel Robert penned his now famous work.

Note : The Colonel was no stranger to the pen. As an engineer, he’d authored two other works of technical writing: The Water-Jet as an Aid to Engineering Construction (1881), and Analytical and Topical Index to the Reports of the Chief of Engineers and the Officers of the Corps of Engineers (compiled from 1866-1879 and published in 1881).

Robert’s supposition was quickly validated. Ordinary societies needed a standard-bearing rule book to help govern their organizational detail and meetings. Upon publication, the book skyrocketed into public consciousness. Millions of copies were sold and distributed, and they continue to be to this day. Since its initial publication in 1876, Robert’s Rules of Order has undergone two revisions and has been issued in a total of 11 editions. The most recent edition of the book, published in 2011, Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised 11th Edition, includes a revision that accounts for modern phenomena that affect organizational behavior, such as the