Business Meeting Thoughts

[kevin_standlee]

Those of you who have attended past WSFS Business Meeting at which I've presided or had a significant role will recall the posters with which I attempt to remind the members that meeting life is more than just encyclopedic knowledge of parliamentary procedure. I have printed those posters again, and will put them up if I don't get in trouble with the management and the convention center. (Obviously, I'm putting my faith in Blue Tape.)

“The purpose of parliamentary procedure is to facilitate the transaction of business and to promote cooperation and harmony. Parliamentary procedure should not be used to awe, entangle, or confound the uninitiated. Technical rules should be used only to the extent necessary to observe the law, to expedite business, to avoid confusion, and to protect the rights of members.”

—Alice Sturgis, The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure


“There are times when the formal application of pure logic or obsessive attention to rules leads one into absurdity. One can only appeal to common sense and fix things up afterwards.”

—From an official parliamentary opinion published by the American Institute of Parliamentarians

Now if only I can remember these posters while I'm presiding. They are behind me, after all.