7 Rules for Small Boards and Committees

  Buried on pages 464 and 465 are the Rules for Small Boards and Committees: RONR possesses essential information relevant to all areas of an organization. Most members are much more likely to serve on a committee than to serve on a large board or deliberative assembly. In a well-functioning organization people are more likely to serve on a committee and then, in order, to become a member of a small board, a large board, and then an assembly.  Small boards and committees should be the seeds of an organization’s success. There are only seven rules for them. They are easy to learn. Currently, they are buried on pages 464 and 465.  These seven rules are the key to the development of any organization. =================================================================   49:21    Procedure in Small Boards . In a board meeting where there are not more than about a dozen members present, some of the formality that is necessary in a large assembly would hinder...

1915: THE HISTORY OF  REVISED RULES FOR SMALL BOARDS AND COMMITTEES In 1915, 38 years after writing his original “Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies,” Henry Martyn Robert published the 4th edition of Robert’s Rules of Order . With great pride, this was the final text to which he participated. He   expanded it greatly; this 4th edition was 75 percent larger than the 3rd edition. Today, with over 6 million copies sold, Robert’s Rules has proven to be an incredibly effective resource for meeting management and organizational development. Yet after 11 editions of improvements, flaws remain. From 1876 to 1915, regardless of the type, size or setting of the meeting, Robert’s Rules limited debate to two times per speaker per day and for up to 10 minutes each time. Originally, RONR limited input. In 1915, Robert recognized this flaw, and his document entered a new era. Unfortunately, most people were unaware of these new rules and the growth that would come f...

HOW ONE MEETING CHANGED HENRY MARTYN ROBERT’S LIFE The catalyst for the creation of RONR occurred during the second year of the Civil War. Robert, a Union Army officer, was in the audience at a crucial community meeting in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The purpose of the meeting was to devise a strategy to protect the city from an impending Confederate naval attack. Rob Henry Martyn Robert was a graduate of West Point. Others at the meeting knew this. Without notice, they drafted him out of the audience to chair the meeting. He was no greenhorn. He came from academic roots. His father, Joseph Thomas Robert, was a physician, minister, and educator who became the first president of the Augusta Institute, later relocated to Atlanta and renamed Morehouse College.  Robert later wrote, “one can scarcely have had much experience in deliberative meetings of Christians without realizing that the best of men, having wills of their own, are liable to attempt to carry out their own views without...

 HOW EDUCATION AND TRAINING ON THE 7 RULES IMPACTS DEMOCRACY IN SOCIETY [This section will complement the INTRODUCTION by Ted Weisgal on his experiences, and why he advocates for the 7 Rules to change the rigid structures and empower people to participate equally and fully in reforms] [Emily Nghiem will add a statement of recommendation, addressing the lack of representation and participation in policy reforms, and how basic education in facilitating groups to communicate their positions and agreed solutions applies to government reforms, from education to media, as well as environmental and health care policy that requires direct representation of local communities. These tools to participate in the democratic process are necessary to educate and empower community members, so that people can learn the process of law enforcement and fulfill the responsibility of self government.] EDUCATION AND BENEFITS FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORM A national organization, Engineering for Kids, almost n...

INTRODUCTION / The Power of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR) can change the world for the better. This essay illustrates how.   INTRODUCTION: TED WEISGAL “I hate Robert’s Rules of Order!” That was the parting shot from my boss as she returned the FM radio I lent her. My hearing had just ended. She fired me from my position at the University of Houston (UH) as a Campus Activities Advisor, a job I’d held from 1973 to 1978. I knew people hated Robert’s Rules, but in my 15 years of exposure to and use of parliamentary procedure, this was the most overt statement I’d ever heard. Given my activist family background, it was natural that I got involved in campus organizations during my college years. I co-founded the Student’s Civil Rights Organization, and was elected president of my dorm. As a VISTA Volunteer, I worked with a junior high PTO, and served on the Student Faculty Staff Academic Senate (SFSAS) at San Jose State University. Th...

  THE ROLE OF BYLAWS , STANDING RULES AND SPECIAL RULES This is “the glue section” of this essay. Without adopting bylaws that establish RONR as your parliamentary authority, there is little basis for having read this. Some organizations don’t identify by name RONR and instead—and unwisely--amalgamate RONR with custom. This may work for an insular body that rarely experiences change. Another option, one that I think is preferable, is to adopt RONR and then to use his tool, Special Rules, to create exceptions. See more on Special Rules, below. These three components – Bylaws, Standing Rules, and Special Rules -- combined with the seven rules for small boards and committees (that come from adopting RONR as your parliamentary authority) enable organizations to grow. BYLAWS RONR identifies nine essential components to bylaws. This essay focuses on the seventh rule; the one addressing small boards and committees. In the fourth edition small board and committee rules were complet...