 Hi, everyone. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. We're so excited that you're here last session of the day. You made it. I hope you are excited about Joining us for this session and this workshop. We're glad you're here We would love to know where you guys are from so feel free to put your your city in the chat Let us know where you're coming from and we're excited. You're here and And we will get started officially a few minutes after 3 30 just so we can give Everyone some time to get in here and start joining us As I'm sure some people are rushing after their last one So we'll we'll wait just about a couple of minutes. So if you guys want to share your your city and where you're from in the chat That would be great Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. Welcome Miss Nympha's gonna join us again. She was with us last session. Hey, everyone Hi, Miss Dora, one of our board members Go ahead and put your city of where you're from give us an idea of which city you represent Thank you miss Nympha, I'm glad you're loving the information I've got lots of notes, too If you're just now joining us and we'd love to see where you're from So if you could just put your city in the chat it just gives a prisoner and Myself an idea of what we have who we have in the room and we will get started in just a few minutes Maybe just a minute It's great seeing everybody. Well seeing your your names. I don't get to see your faces Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and start going over just a few housekeeping things and then we'll get started with the Presentation we're so glad you're joining us for this great session I'm all about Paul in Terry Paul in Terry procedure. I always say I always mess it up And you guys are gonna you guys are in a treat with for your speaker today She has so much knowledge and so much expertise to share with you My name is Tabitha Butler and I work for the city of Fort Worth in the communications and public engagement Department and I am proud member of the community engagement office Who's helping put on who is putting on this conference and so we're so glad you're here. Hope you're learning a lot As a reminder on the right-hand side of your screen You're gonna have the tuch the little bubbles up there the conversation bubbles. That's for the chat So just enter any comments or feedback there if you need to below the bubbles is a Guy in front of or a girl in front of a little chalkboard looks like a teacher That's where you're gonna put your questions So throughout the presentation if you have questions for Mary if you'll type them in this Question box we will try to get to them at the end of the presentation And then if you look a little bit below that there's three little people That's where you can see all the presenters and then you can see everybody who's joined you for the presentation And if you see somebody that you want to chat with like I'm gonna pick on one of my neighborhood leaders I work with BJ if I wanted to message him directly then I would just click on his name and I could send him a message and Then Mary has also graciously provided you With parts of the president with the presentation for after so you can reference it and it's where the three Sheets of paper are that's gonna be your files so just make sure that you're using the chat to give some feedback but also Using that little question box so that we can answer your questions at the end of the session And so I do also want to remind you if you want to make your screen bigger at the bottom of your screen on the right-hand side There'll be a box that has some openings You just click that to toggle to full screen and so that'll make your press the presentation Bigger so that you can see it better so Enough of that housekeeping stuff. You've probably heard this feel four times already and know what you're doing So I am excited to turn it over to and welcome Our wonderful Mary Kaiser. She is our city secretary hit the city of Fort Worth and she is gonna be Giving you so much great information today. So I'm gonna pass it to her Well, thank you, Tabitha and welcome everybody for the last session of the day and we're gonna talk about parliamentary procedure I'm probably one of the few people that gets really excited about parliamentary procedure. So But I'm gonna start sharing my presentation and we'll get into it because it is I've got a lot of information to share so we want to Try that again, okay All right, there we go. I tried to click on something else So we're gonna talk about Really some just practical tips for holding successful meetings and we're gonna use parliamentary procedure for fun I know you don't think it's fun, but it is and efficiency. So and I've done this for a long time and I can tell you that if you use some of the tips that I'm gonna share with you and some of the rules out of Robert's Rules of Order and It really will help you have a much more efficient meeting and then they can be a little bit more fun and they are not such a chore so let's get right into this and So first of all, what do you need for successful meeting and I'm talking about a meeting of your neighborhood Association where you're gonna have 25 people in your living room and you're having a you know a neighborhood association meeting or If we were all here for NUSA and we were having a big meeting to you know You know to your like your annual meeting all of these rules work for either size meeting So they're they're applicable to anything, you know that you that you're you're working in you know a church meeting any other volunteer Organization they're they're valuable for anything. So first of all, you need some rules on how you're gonna conduct your business So that's where Robert's Rules comes in plus some other local rules that you might adopt you need a well-prepared agenda That's your roadmap critical for a good meeting you need enough time for an effective meeting you need to look at what you are trying to accomplish and Estimate how much time these things are gonna take so that you don't try to you know Have an hour-long meeting that really you should have set, you know an hour and a half or two hours for You need an engaged board you need the you know your board of directors or your you know President by your executive team, whatever you want to call it you need engaged members And then you need a good record of what you did at that meeting Which is your minutes and we'll talk about that and then you need a plan for your next meeting So it's just a you know, it just you know just keeps going around So let's talk about running the meeting first of all you want to start on time. That's critical You know you ask people to take time out of their busy schedule to come to a meeting and you want to start on time And you want to ensure that you have a quorum whatever that means for your organization You want to move down the agenda in order There are some times when you're gonna want to take things out of order and we'll talk about that But pretty much you want to go down the agenda in order You want to communicate if you are the chair of the meeting You want to communicate with the rest of the board and with your audience? So they know what you're doing and why you're doing it and anything like that and you want to be consistent You want to run your meetings and set your agendas up the same way each time So everybody's ready to go and they know what you're gonna do So why parliament your procedure, you know, everybody thinks that it's really complicated It's just gonna make the meetings go longer Well, not necessarily First of all, it provides you some structure and some consistency It protects the minority and we're gonna talk about that in a minute It allows for free and impartial debate in a reasonable amount of time That's where some meetings can get off can really get off track because the debate just goes on and on and on And there's no way to stop it and Also, it does save time. It is very very efficient. So let's talk about how it provides you some structure and helps you manage the meeting It's much easier to conduct a meeting when everybody knows what the rules are They know how to get recognized so that they can speak they know how to make a motion they know what motions to make and And and how the chair is going to handle routine matters and then, you know, wait, wait, it's it's moving too fast and We're repeating ourselves those things can happen in a meeting and and this will help you get some control over that so I talked about protecting the rights of the minority and so a Decision that's made by a group who listen to the minority is usually far better than one made by a group who ignored or ridiculed the minority and what I'm saying here is you may have something come before your organization that 80 80% of the people on in the organization. It's a really good idea. You got 15 or 20 percent that maybe don't think it's such a good idea. That's your minority But you want to make sure that you hear them because they may have some valid points that someone else hasn't thought of so you want to make sure that they're heard and By using parliamentary procedure you ensure that everyone's treated fairly and You hear all sides of the issue and that the rules are the same for everyone. And so that's how you're protecting those rights and let's talk about debate debate is The discussion regarding emotion that's out there you decided that you're going to You know a city council could have a motion out there to you know to buy a fire truck And so it's the debate that you know this out there on that motion on whether to buy a fire truck You know, when are we going to buy it? And you know how much we're going to pay for it all that sort of stuff So that's what debate is so Under Robert's rules you want to have free and impartial debate that you want it to be reasonable in a reasonable amount of time So Robert if your group has adopted Robert's rules of order as your parliamentary authority It says you can speak two times for ten minutes No second speeches until everyone has spoken that wants to So that's what you're that's what the rules are but you can change them You can adopt the local rules that make more sense for your organization That you could modify it to say that you can only speak for five minutes For example, still you can't speak the second time until everyone else has had their first opportunity to speak And I've seen this particular thing in practice at a previous city that I was in the the mayor was was a registered Parliamentarian and so he ran a very good meeting. That's how I how I learned that this is good makes good sense and we had something that was being discussed it was quite controversial lots of opinions and We were keeping up with who who had spoken the first time in and that and one of our council members You know had rung in to speak for a second time and the mayor looked at him and said this will be your second And final opportunity to speak do you want to take it and he changed his mind and decided he would wait and let a few other People speak before he came back in again So it does make a difference and he waited and then he did he did eventually speak but you want you know It just makes it it's reasonable and it saves time and Just you know for saving time is it's efficient and there's some time. There's some things that you can do That you can use a consent agenda if you have a number of things that are fairly routine Perhaps it is you know approve your minutes from the last meeting Maybe there's several reports that are non controversial that everyone's had a chance to read you put all of that on a consent agenda And came to let with one motion You can use unanimous consent also on something that's not controversial Which means that without the the chair would have something out, you know to vote on that's fairly non controversial and you would say you know, perhaps it's That we're going to break for lunch at one o'clock and he said well, you know with Hearing no objection then you know With that, you know well under unanimous consent that we will agree to break for lunch at one o'clock The correct use of tabling The correct use of tabling is that something more urgent has come up that you need to handle Head of the item that you're on and you would do it within the same meeting something else has happened Perhaps there's a report later in the meeting. That's very critical and the person who is presenting that report Something has happened and they are going to have to leave at a particular time And so you can table the item you're on bring that one up on the agenda and handle it to allow that person to Then be able to leave to take care of their other item and then you go back to the item you're on so that does save some time You can postpone to a certain time if you have something that It's not fully baked and then these things happen in a meeting So you decide, you know, we really don't have enough information So we want to postpone it but it has to be to a certain time to the next meeting Until 6 30 p.m. Perhaps someone else is going to be available at 6 30 that can help Or until the finance committee reports back on this you have to put some sort of a time period on there Excuse me And then one that you want to keep in your back pocket is postpone indefinitely This is a very handy Motion in Roberts that allows you to kill something. It's already Gotten into debate and what you're doing is you agree not to decide It's something is out there and no matter if you make a motion to approve it It's not going to be good. You make a motion to deny it. That's not going to look good There's just no graceful way to get out of this this thing You can postpone it indefinitely and it just goes away. So That's a handy one to have you don't use it very often. It's it's not something you use very often But it does come in handy For certain items so So there's 10 Commandments of parliamentary procedure and I'll go through these fairly quickly First of all the organization is paramount to the individual you're working for the good of the group You know, if you're a city council, you're working for the good of the city council If you're a neighborhood association, it's good of the neighborhood Now whatever body that you're representing all members are equal. Nobody is more important than the other everybody, you know it's all equal a Quorum must be present to conduct business and take legal action That's going to be stated in either a law or a rule or your rules of procedure What's your quorum is and that quorum has to be there before you can take action and that also Protects your minority because it doesn't allow for you to conduct business with only one or two people out of a board of 10 or 15 Only one main question can be on the floor at a time and Only one speaker can have the floor at a time Otherwise, it's going to be much like Thanksgiving dinner when everybody's around the big table or at least hopefully we will be this Thanksgiving and Everybody's talking at the same time and there's lots of conversations going on which is great for Thanksgiving Not so great when you're having a meeting So you want to have some control over over that so you can pay attention to what's actually being acted on debatable motions must receive full debate and so You just you have it until everybody you know has said their piece and everybody's comfortable You don't use personal remarks during debate if there's an item out there that a particular board member or member of the organization has championed and brought forward and Maybe it's not a very good idea, but you don't you debate the idea You don't shame the person that brought it does a list do good idea You know you debate whether it's good or bad, but you don't say anything about the person that brought it forward and Then a question which is a motion you've decided something you don't bring it back again in the same manner in the same form except by reconsideration This is one that's very tricky and not used very often, but occasionally you decide something and then People think about it, and then they realize Well, that's that's just not gonna work or no We did something that we just can't do and so you need to reconsider that But it's something you'd want to definitely talk with your parliamentarian if you have one Do you have legal counsel if you're a city council on how to make that happen how to bring that back before the board Most of the time you just need a majority vote to decide something But sometimes a greater number is is required particularly if you are going to Take something away from the members. So if you decide that You want to Your rules say that everybody can debate, you know can speak in debate twice Well, you know a really long agenda So you decide that you're gonna change the rules just for this meeting which you can do to say, okay Everybody can only speak once in debate. Well, you're you're Taking something away from your members and so that motion to do that first of all It has to be a motion in a second and you have to have a super majority You have to have more than a majority to agree to do that two-thirds vote That's not that's when you need a higher vote and then silence gives consent If you don't vote you just give your consent to the decision made by the group This is not the same as abstaining you would abstain for something from something if you have a Another interest and it's going to benefit you personally then you're not going to vote on it But if you just decide not to vote In many cases you don't have to but if you do that then you're just saying I agree to go on with whatever The majority is going to do I agree to go with that. So let's talk about how you get something in front of the group You make a motion a main motion. I think we're all very familiar with this people say things like I make a motion to Do something So you address the chair that's who you make the motion to You'll be recognized and then you make the motion and then someone seconds it and Then the chair, you know, it's a back and forth and then the chair states the questioner states the motion So that's how you get it in front of the you know in front of the group Now once it's out there. So now you've got this motion out there. It's not gonna do something with it So the first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna debate it now. It may be that it doesn't need any debate It's a slam dunk. It's an easy thing. There's no there's no nothing to talk about You just want to vote on it. So if there is no debate Then the chair puts the question to a vote and says, you know, are you, you know, the chair would You know, are you all ready to vote and then you vote? However, it is that you vote you either raise your hand you say I or nay You know, whatever you're doing and then the chair announces the result If there is debate, then you begin to debate the motion using the rules and everybody gets their chance to say something And then once the debate is concluded then you have the vote and then you announce the results So this slide has a lot of information on it But when it appears that the debate is ended the chair should ask if everybody is ready for the question And that's that's the question from the chairs. Everybody ready. That's your time If you really have something else to say this bit your time to jump in there to debate again If nobody says anything then the chair will assume that it's time to vote and they'll restate the question And then you're ready to vote on it So there's a couple of nuances in here that might be helpful The question is pending when it's been stated by the chair, but it hasn't been voted on So it's right there And then the last motion stated by the chair is the first motion pending and that's when you're amending something You've got a motion out there to do something and someone wants to amend it So you have to vote on the amendment first and then vote on the the main motion And then the main motion is always voted on last The chair's wording of a motion when it's put to a vote is the definitive motion to be included in the minutes And that's the version so if the chair has misstated your motion You need to correct this chair. You need to get their attention and say that is not what I said And if it truly is misstated And then the chair should always always ask for negative motions Even if the vote appears to be unanimous and especially if you're in a large group You may want you always want to ask for any negative just to make sure because someone could be voting in opposition to it And they want to have that recording. I'm not going to read this to you. It's in the presentation The an effective chair presiding officer There's a lot of things that you want to do if you are chairing or you're the presiding officer of a group And um, you know start the meeting on time You know prepare for the meeting things like that. So I've got some things for that one And the last one's really important the sense of humor because things happen in meetings You know microphones fall over You know technology doesn't work. You just got to have a good sense of humor in order to keep the meeting going along And you have a lot of duties as the presiding officer. You've got to be organized. That's where your well-prepared agenda comes in handy Be prepared. You need to be familiar with the rules Be a mentor and explain things to the group And especially if you're a chair and you have a new member join that really doesn't know what the common rules are They've never been a part of your board before, you know explain things to them You're impartial and you're precise and you're courteous, but it is the chair's job to maintain control And if you're a board member if you're a member of this organization, you've got some things to do as well You've got to be committed to the mission. You've got to attend as many meetings as possible You know get pull your own weight, but be prepared to ask tough questions You know, you're there, you know, you were either elected to the board or you joined it because you really believe in the organization and you need to be prepared to ask those hard questions And and do your homework and get ready be prepared for the meeting All right, so let's talk about the agenda as I said, that's your roadmap and it's a really key part of your whole process It's the actions that should to be taken by the board It needs to be easy to read and understand so the people who are attending the meeting And they may not have any vote in the meeting, but they need to understand what you're going to do needs to be newsworthy to all members Um, I put on there it accurately meets open meetings or openness requirements depending on what state you're in and what kind of board it is There may be some requirements that you know, things be stated very clearly Do you don't use use terms like old business or new business? And then you don't list anything under them, you know, you put out there exactly what it is going to do There's some definitions of an agenda It's a memorandum of things to be done as items of business or discussion to be brought up at a meeting That's what we all pretty much understand Roberts has a little bit more fancy definition It's a predetermined sequence of items of business to be covered in a specific meeting It's also known as the order of business So preparing an agenda is to provide a guide To the people running the meeting because also notice to all of your members that are out there You know about what you're going to do When you're going to do it in what place you're going to do it at the time date and place So what are all the pieces to this agenda puzzle? First of all, I got to figure out who's going to be responsible for preparing it Sometimes it's the board secretary. It could be the president or ceo The board chair or some group, but you know, maybe all three of them work on it Or the secretary prepares it and it's approved by the others So how's this determined sometimes you've adopted rules of procedure that say You know the by the second day of the month the secretary is going to prepare the agenda and then by the 10th day of the month The president's going to approve it and it'll be distributed to the members no later than five days before the meeting Something like that Or it could just be this the way we've always done it the secretary has always prepared it and The president's approved it and that's how we've always done it so If you get it in writing what the rules are that's always really helpful And then you need to determine who can put items on the agenda And how are they going to do that? How far in advance do they need to let you know? Who can do it? Can anybody in the organization put stuff on the agenda? Does it have to be vetted? You know, how how does that work? You know, how how did that how do those things get on the agenda? Okay, so if you're going to put it together an agenda Um You need to have a policy it identifies ones, you know, who's responsible And it establishes your deadlines. This is really critical You need to you know a deadline for getting a draft agenda. How do you revise it adding agenda items? Some deadline there at some point we have to just decide this is the final agenda And then how are you going to post it? Where are you going to put it? And what's the deadline going to be for that? In organizations like cities and counties, they're going to be legal deadlines You know ours is 72 hours in advance for other organizations. It may be a little softer than that You know depending on what you're doing if you're Have an item on there perhaps to amend your bylaws It may have a very specific time period that you have to have that available to your members But otherwise it could just be, you know, no later than 24 hours before the meeting, you know, whatever your rules are Most important though, you want to review it and make sure that everybody's in agreement with the agenda as it stands and in the order And and how and what your deadlines are And also if you're going to do a policy have the entire board adopt the policy So they're all in agreement on this is how we're going to prepare and deal with our agenda And then set up a lot of it in advance so that it's just really kind of a plug and play You put things in it's going to look the same every time and it's it makes it really easy as you Transition from you know, if your secretary is doing it from secretary to secretary It's just really easy for the next one to just tick up and and do your agenda and you don't have a huge You know training curve So the other piece of it so you've got your agenda, which is that cover page says this is all the things We're going to adopt Well, the packet is the information that you're going to provide to those who are making the decision So what's in it the first of all you need to ask to even need one Not every time it could be that some things are you know, if you're having a special meeting For something that really there is no background. It's just going to be a discussion There may not be anything other than the agenda But then on some things it may be you know, if you're adopting your budget Well, then you know the draft budget may need to be in there some sort of treasurer's report If you're having a neighborhood meeting you want to have npo crime reports or committee reports Any kind of background information, especially on something that's a hot topic, you know, you want to have a lot of background information maps You know proclamations, you know just anything That is going to be helpful to the people making the decision and to the people in the audience So they know what you're talking about and then You know, maybe upcoming meeting or event dates You just might have a sheet at the very end that just says our next meeting And here's an upcoming events for the organization And then the third piece of it is the format of your agenda You can do short captions with your full short sentences describing each agenda item in a caption form Or annotated is a little bit more than that. It's got a sentence and then some comments about the item, you know, sort of a Executive summary if you want to call it that and then perhaps even a recommendation that, you know, the the finance committee recommends that the The organization adopt the attached budget You can have that included on your agenda if you choose to do so And then the agenda document itself. So we're talking about now It should say agenda. You should have the name of your association The date of the meeting and what kind of meeting are you having? Is it your regular meeting? Is it a special meeting? Is it an emergency meeting? Or is it a committee meeting? It's not the whole group. It's a smaller committee And then where are you having the meeting? What room what building name street address? You know, so people know where to come to attend the meeting and then what time are you meeting? What's the time of the meeting and then Well that slide didn't turn out very nice You only have a call to order announce a quorum is present any ceremonial matters at the beginning and then your consent agenda Maybe the minutes of the prior meeting Regular items. These are other items to be acted on by the board And if you do have something that's a really hot topic. So everybody in the neighborhood is really interested in this We lived in a lake community for a while down in down by huntsville and We were surrounded by a lot of forest, but we had a lot of deer and Every year there was a discussion at the annual meeting of the neighborhood association about the deer You know, do we have too many we have do we need to you know call the herd We need to have them, you know captured and and move off to another area You know into the national forest Or something and that was always a hot topic because there was lots of people with lots of interest on both sides And so you might want to put those early on the agenda So you can get those out of the way and then if people are only interested in that and they don't want to Stay for the rest of the meeting And then you have your table postponed or continued items Then you've got reports and then the date of your next meeting and then your adjournment oops And then there's some other tips for your agenda format Just include as much information as possible in a succinct one-sentence format If on your consent agenda use things like approve authorize accept award, you know action verbs like that Discuss in consideration or consideration of for your action items So people know that you're going to take action on those And then be realistic when you're talking about how long is it going to take to talk about a particular item And then make sure that everything's ready to go as best you can sometimes once you get into the discussion or the debate You realize oh my gosh, this thing really isn't fully baked We really need to postpone it and get more information But try your best to not put something on that's that's not really ready to go to the group And I called us an ADA statement our city agendas here in texas are required to have a statement on there about What accommodations we've made you know like where's the handicap parking that the room is accessible Is there a particular door or someone perhaps in a wheelchair would need to go to? And it also talks about if you need assistance at the meeting You know you need a translator or hearing assistance or anything like that, you know who do you contact But just in general if you're having a neighborhood a meeting or something else You it's a good practice to hold your meetings in a place that's accessible to those With mobility hearing or other issues you don't want to you know some rooms if you're in their meeting It's real echoey and that makes it very hard for people with hearing aids Some rooms you really can't have a meeting in there if you don't have some sort of amplification people can't hear So you want to just think about those things and make sure you have enough seating for everybody because it you know Standing is is really hard and People are going to get cranky if they have to stand too long So you want to be as comfortable as possible and then an emergency meeting you need to have a Process for an emergency situation Even in a neighborhood association Something could happen that you really do need you know to have an emergency meeting and you need to have a process for that What is it going to be? Maybe it's an emergency expense that you're going to need to do and but you need to get approval of everybody before you can do it If you don't have bylaws or rules of procedure You may want to adopt some just to cover this kind of situation And you know you can also include you know Who's going to put things on the agenda and how much notice do you need and things like that? And then your pending agenda is this would be something probably your board secretary would keep up with um You just want to keep a date of your upcoming meetings And things that get continued or tabled So you know what to do with them and where to put them something you got continued Okay, we're going to continue this till our august meeting. Well, someone needs to be responsible for actually going to the august agenda or the august agenda notes and say oh we got to put this item on here, you know bring it forward And you can also use it um For certain things that you know, we're going to happen You know, there may be specific reports that have to be presented to the board at the same time every year Specific events, maybe your budget has to be adopted before the end of september of officer elections Things like that, you know, maybe you have to have your annual meeting You have your meetings your regular meetings whenever you want to but every year you have to have an annual meeting It has to be in the third week of august Well, you need to set up an agenda for that and calendar it and make sure that you have your You know everything else on that agenda that you need for your annual meeting. So you don't forget And accessing it by the public and you know for cities and municipalities Obviously, we have to make the agenda just is available to the public as we possibly can We post it on the website. It's it's available and it's in all of it is available I can come by my office. They can you know, there's lots of ways to get the agenda But as your neighborhood association, you want to you know, make it accessible to your members Do you have a you know, um, some sort of an official bulletin board? Do you have a website? You could put it up there. Do you have email for all your members? You can email them the agenda Um, maybe you can mail it to those who don't have email access Do you have a community building? Can you post it there and say, well, The sort's going to be do you always meet in the same room? Maybe there's a way to post it outside the door And just you know, keep it standard so everybody knows where to find the agenda You don't want people to say, well, I didn't know, you know, I would have been there to talk about the deer if I'd known But I didn't know where the meeting was So all of the pieces of that puzzle, you know, because there's a lot of pieces to an agenda It gives you that big picture and how you can apply it to your board Yours may not be nearly that complicated, but you know having a good process in place So when you do have that hot item that contentious item Or that emergency, you're ready. You're ready to act on it And just keep thinking about it and and listen to the needs of your board members over time Things change, you know, maybe Your neighborhood is getting younger and folks really want their things to be presented to them electronically But you also may have folks in your neighborhood that, you know They really need it mailed to them. They're not going to they don't have an email address Well, they're not going to check the email, you know But you need to be able to reach everybody with your agenda so that you have a you know have a good meeting And everybody's aware Can't make them come to the meeting but you can certainly make sure that they're aware of the meeting And then we're going to talk a little bit about minutes now I'm the city secretary and I do we do minutes here. So this is something that I'm very passionate about But you need to have some standards for your meetings your minute meeting minutes. Sorry Action only that's what we do here at the city of Fort Worth Some people sort of go with the anecdotal which is the decision with a little bit of discussion Or some go with verbatim, which is every single word is recorded Don't recommend that There's nothing wrong with it, but I don't recommend it. It's first of all, it's a very time consuming and then once people see Verbatim work for word what they said they're like, I didn't say that and in any way it could get ugly so I recommend I recommend decision only action only minutes but Anecdotal is maybe a good compromise if you know between the two Okay, at a minimum your minutes should you know, okay, who met who's who's the scoop for what date what kind of meeting Where's the location? Where were they meeting at? Who was there? Who was absent? Were there others present, you know, is there a sign-in sheet that you can attach to your minutes? You want to know who was there you want to know who was there that made that decision because if someone was absent If Your board made some sort of decision and somebody's gonna In the worst-case scenario going to sue you for it. Well, if the board member was not there Then you know, they that needs to reflect that so that they're not, you know caught up in that And you want to try to get the names of any people who spoke before the board If you have a speaker card or position cards or a sign-in sheet of some kind That's very helpful So you can especially if you need to reach back out to them because they made some sort of a comment And you want to get more information or you want to thank them for their participation or That you know, they had a really good idea and we want to implement that and would they be willing to help you? You know something like that Any of your members who have a conflict of interest, you know They're voting on maybe perhaps buying something buying a piece of property And one of your members, you know is a part owner of that property. Well, they have a they can't vote on that They need to completely stand aside from that. But you need to have that in writing What time did you adjourn? And then just a date saying when the the minutes were approved by the board Okay, so that was a lot of information Um About, you know meetings and parliamentary procedure, but I think we've got time for some questions Great. Yes, Mary. We do have a few questions Um, I always say this when I do this presentation I'm sure there is a lot, but I I know everyone's really appreciating that all this information is available to them in the files tab so, um Guys, if you do have questions for Mary, be sure to put them in the question Use the question tab. I remember it's the person in front of the chalkboard looking like a teacher Um, that really helps us so that we can make sure that we get to your question So the first one is from miss rebecca and she's asking What is the usual percentage of the group of represents a quorum? That can depend. Um if It's usually more than 50% like if you have a board of Of nine people then most of the time you need five you need five people there to be a quorum but in some cases, um Your rules may say something different so like the city of Fort Worth we have to have six And the reason we do that is because we have some items that require A super majority which would be six or Would be actually six people. Yeah, they'll require, you know You want to have a quorum that if you have something that's going to require a super majority that you have enough people there So it's um, you know, it just depends on what your rules are But that's why it's important that you determine what your quorum is going to be And uh and put that in your rules or procedures. So, you know exactly how many people and are you talking about The number of people who are Uh Like the makeup of the board, you know, it's nine people Total and it's you know, you're gonna say, okay, I want I have to have five people Present but let's say one of your spaces is vacant. There's there's no one in that seat But does that count towards your quorum? Those are things that you need to to um work with Your your group and decide what you're going to do but normally it's just, you know, whatever, uh, it's 50 plus one, you know, so So in that case, if it's nine, you know more than half That's what you're looking for Okay, great Okay, miss ninfa asked We assist neighborhoods get started and at times it's difficult to have them stay on point recommendations to keep them on track with roberts rule of order Well, the easiest thing to do is really is to make it simple and you just um I keep going back to rules of procedure that you adopt You can adopt roberts rules as your as your Go to and then you can adopt your own rules of procedure that say, okay This is what our agenda is going to look like and this is how we're going to make motions and this is This is how you're going to get recognized. I mean if you want to get down to that granular detail in that way, um, it's just It's easy to do and you don't want them to get down in the weeds of roberts Because that can make people get really antsy and so it's really pretty basic as long as they do the The motion making as long as I understand how to make a motion that someone understands how to second it And then how to have your debate and then how to vote if they understand that and you know You could do mock meetings and practice it And to help them understand and then that will keep your meeting moving along But those are the key things. How do I make how do I get recognized first so I can make a motion? How do I get recognized to make a second and then how are we going to conduct our debate? and then At what point are we going to decide that? Um, okay, we've debated enough It's time to take a vote And a lot of it goes to your chair and your chair is the one that really kind of has to keep the meeting moving on You know moving along great, um, I know that our office nympha offers a screening um for new board members for neighborhood associations and we Briefly go over roberts rules, but we do talk a lot about, you know, maintaining the room and the floor and making sure that The president is, you know responsible and making guiding through the the meeting. So More than happy to share that with you If you would like to to look at it, you can send me a message and I can send that over to you as well Okay, miss eva asked is it all right if we use the roberts will order newly revised in brief by And then it's uh says september 1st 2020 Right off the top of my head. I don't know what the most recent version is um, but uh roberts just did come out with a new version And so there should be a new roberts rules in brief that matches up with the new version And um, but I do think the 2020 is the right one because I got mine last year So I think that is the right the right version But yes, you absolutely can and that is a little bit easier to read a little bit And it's not nearly as intimidating and there's also out there a number of roberts rules for dummies and roberts rules for I can't remember what the other one's called And I trust I use those all the time because they're a lot The explanations are a lot clearer and then you can go back and look at roberts and it will help you understand What you're trying to do, but it's a lot easier lots of good examples really simple examples Right. I saw somebody put one in the chat. I'll see if I can pin it so everyone can see it as well Um, okay. Ms. Margie says is asking is a motion needed to adjourn a meeting? No, it's not. Um, if there is no further business to come before the group then the chair can just say Exactly what I said Seeing no more there's no more business to come before the group. We are adjourned And they can just adjourn the meeting. So it's not it's not required great Okay, so Miss Dora asks when there is an action item that needs to be voted by the members And there's no representation from some of the neighborhood association What is the recommended action to take on that item? um Okay Is that just the recommendation Give me that again, Travis. Okay. So when there is an action item that needs to be voted by the members And there's no representation from some of the neighborhood association What is the recommended action to take on to that item? Okay, so I think what she's asking is you've held a meeting you've called a meeting And one of the items on there you really want representation from the whole neighborhood association And and you don't have it, you know, either nobody showed up for the meeting or only one or two people showed up for the meeting If the item is really time-sensitive Just may have to go with what you've got But if it is not time-sensitive and can wait for you to have another meeting That would be my recommendation is to um To postpone that item to a future date and and say we're going to handle it there and also perhaps to um Really work hard to get people out there to say hey, we really want your input on this and nobody showed up at the last Meeting so please come to the special meeting that we're holding in three weeks To talk about this particular item and give them an opportunity to come And and maybe explain to them why it's so important to have their their Their input and give them the you know another shot at it But then if they don't show up at that second meeting then I think you just have to go with what you've got And but you at least you can go back and if someone says well, I didn't know you said well It was on the agenda for June and then we postponed it to august to have another meeting and gave lots of notice and nobody showed up And so we just went with the people that were there And you've covered yourself right Really great advice Okay, shannon asks can you change the local roles per meeting or doesn't need to be in your bylaws? well, what needs to be in your bylaws is a way to Suspend it's called suspend your rules So let's say that you have a rule in your bylaws that said are in your rules of procedure that says that Let's go back to the debate that says that you everybody can you know, maybe it says you can debate three times You can speak three times for two minutes each And you've got a really long agenda and you want to say, okay, we're only going to do it for two You need to have a way to do that so you would have a motion to suspend your rules for that meeting related to debate and You will only be able to debate two times But it would require a motion and it would require a second And it would require a two-thirds vote because you are Reducing some of the rights of the members So everybody has to agree to it But you need to just have something in your that allows you to suspend those rules because sometimes for timing purposes Um, you need to be able to to do something quicker than you normally would And uh, the city of fort worth and tap if they could provide this to you if you ask her Our council rules of procedure are public and we have a section there about suspending the rules and how that needs to happen So, um, and we're happy to share or you can email me directly and we're happy to share our rules of procedure That could be adopted For or modified for any organization Thank you. Yeah, go for your response to us That's why the rules of procedure are really really helpful. I mean, I don't have to be long They could be three or four pages But just anything that you have that says this is how we're going to conduct our meetings every single time But occasionally we're going to have to do something different and this is how we're going to accomplish that And then everybody knows what the rules are Yes, our board trading our board training does go over that you know, some of the things keeping it simple and and Tips on, you know, making the sure the meeting flows Um, and it keeps everybody involved as well Um, I don't know about you guys, but I've been to some unorganized meetings It's hard to get anything out of those sometimes. So, okay, there was another question. Um in the chat from Shannon and I Let's see postponing Indefinitely can be used against members who want to vote on a matter But one or two people want to kill the matter. Isn't that called dilatory? Or am I saying that wrong? Dilatory. Yeah, dilatory. I know I'm saying it wrong. It's from here No, we're getting kind of down into the weeds of roberts rules, but um You know, it's I mean someone can make a motion to postpone something indefinitely because they there's And typically that's used when something Is it's just gonna there's just no good way to get out of it The best example is that I can think of right off the top of my head is They somebody wants to they've put a name forward for someone to appoint to a board and It you know, for some reason that's just it's it's not gonna For any number of reasons, perhaps that person is not going to be The right person to appoint to to this position and if you vote them down Well, that makes everybody look bad But if you approve them, they're just really not the right fit And so there's just not really a good way to get out of that And so someone could say we're gonna postpone the appointment of joe blow to the whatever board indefinitely and That makes it go away because you really you've not said no you've not said yes you just pushed it away and then Maybe come back later with a different appointment or decide that it's just really not a good idea You just don't really have anybody to appoint to that board. That's usually what it's used for to kind of sort of Get people out without you know in causing any embarrassment to anybody But you know if someone makes that motion it doesn't have to pass I mean someone has to second it and it has to you know It has to pass and if it doesn't then somebody that wants to actually vote on the item can make a motion to vote on it So, you know, it's um, it's not a done deal Okay, mary Let's see. Um, do you guys have any more questions for mary? We have a few more minutes Um, I did pin at the top of the chat. Mr. Alvin, um posted a booklet that he's used Um, he says it's very short and simple There's a lot of good information out there about uh, roberts rules and how to run good meetings And um in tap with those right you really want your meeting to be very well run you don't want to rush through things because you want people to have enough time to To take it in what you're talking about and you want to have good discussion And if there's no harm if you're the chair of a meeting and something is just going completely sideways To stop it and just say okay. We need to regroup here Let me talk to the secretary or to the parliamentarian and let's get us back on track You know, that's a good chair to recognize. Okay. This is just gone completely sideways And we need to get back on track. And so um as a chair you sometimes just have to put yourself out there and say, okay, hang on guys Let's let's sort of wagons. Let's get back together and here's what we're going to do But since we do have a couple of minutes Let me run really quickly through something that you all may have seen at your meetings and i've Mids included in the presentation. It's when someone there's been a lot of discussion and it's gone on and on and on and um All of a sudden someone just jumps up and says let me don't jump up, but they jump up and say I call the question Which is um, you know, they're they're wanting to stop the debate Okay, that's a perfectly legitimate thing to do but It does it is a parliamentary action and it requires a motion in a second You don't just suddenly stop talking and take a vote right then The person that makes that has actually made a motion to essentially call the question They want to they they want to stop debate and they want to vote Now they've got to have somebody second that someone's got to agree that that's a good idea And then you have to vote on it and it's also going to take a two-thirds majority because You're in the middle of debate and someone wants to take that away so um So if that happens in your meeting and you're chairing it then you need to get a second for that And if it passes the two-thirds majority Then yes, it is time to then vote on that item debate is ended If it doesn't then you just go right back into debate and right back where you started from So I wanted to put that out there because that can sometimes happen and it's really not um It can sneak up on you if you're not prepared for it and the the right answer is I have a motion to call the question Is there a second and if there isn't a second then it is It dies for lack of a need to go right back into debate So I wanted to put that out there just in case that happens to you Don't let somebody hijack your meeting by knowing what they think is the secret word to you know get things moving on All right. Okay. We did have another question come in Doesn't the president have ultimate say in the outcome? Not all people are well versed in roberts The chair yes, the chair can make decisions Um, if someone is questioning the way something has happened The chair can make a decision But there's also a part of roberts that allows for someone to challenge the chair and say I think you're wrong and so um You yes, the chair is you know, the the chair really does have a lot of power to make those decisions But not every chair is perfect. And so um, it could be that they just honestly think They're supposed to do x and they really are supposed to do y and it is Someone needs to point that out if they've done it wrong But yes, they're but there is a way to do that but having like I said having rules about how you do your basic things many Smaller boards really don't get you know really beyond making motions in seconds and and things like that But having something written down to help the chair is always a good idea Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much Um, let me look in the chat and see if there's anything else. I know we're almost done with time Okay, mendy asked what do you say to stop that from happening? I think she might be referencing What you were talking about before um Oh, the call to question. I think so. Yeah If that's what it is. Yes, um It's up to the chair to say yes, there is a It's honestly just say we have a motion to To call the question or to stop debate and vote on this item Is there a second and that's the best thing to do and then if someone seconds it then you do have to go on with the Vote But if you're not sure that everyone understands what's happening the chair can explain and say What this will do is we will stop debating if this passes and we will vote on the item right now And just to make sure everybody understands and sometimes that's the best way to to make to do that and just to educate them about You have to have a we have to have a motion and a second and a vote on this before it can take place And it requires a two-thirds vote Okay, great. Okay, we're gonna have one more question In a community meeting if there is an action brought to the floor to vote Should the vote only be taken by those who are the elected in a members or can it include other persons and attendants? That's going to go back to your rules of procedure on who on on what your different levels of membership are and what their rights are Certain members, you know, the board has the right to vote. Um, you know, maybe Uh, I know an organization I belong to the the whole family belongs but each family only gets one vote So if my husband and I go We only count as one vote doesn't you know, so, um, it just it needs to be stated in your right Rules, you know, how that's going to work But it would seem like the people in the neighborhood association would certainly have standing someone from another neighborhood association That has really no nothing to do with this. They just showed up because I thought it was interesting Maybe shouldn't be voting on it if it just applies to that one neighborhood So that's where those rules of procedure come in handy. So you can find who gets to vote Yes, oh, we're always referencing all of our neighborhood associations. What do your bylaws say? Let's that's our favorite thing here to say in the office Yeah bylaws and rules of procedure add wonderful things. They're very hard to write but once you get them, they're absolutely invaluable Yes, for sure. Well, Mary, thank you so much for your time. Thank you all of you guys who joined us I mean, isn't she amazing? She has so much knowledge about this and Does it in a way that you can understand and gives great examples? So friends, that's our last workshop session for Nusa today We're looking forward to tomorrow But what we do have coming up at five is our neighborhood tours And it makes me so sad that you're not here with us in person to go through our amazing neighborhoods and see some of these projects But you are going to love Getting to watch some great videos about some wonderful things that are happening in Fort Worth And so be sure to be ready to do that at five And we of course if you don't join us, then we'll see you tomorrow in the morning So thank you guys so much and I hope that you have a great rest of your day Thanks everybody Thanks, Mary You can come I'll check back tomorrow and see if there's any questions. Oh, yeah, that sounds great. Mary. Thank you so much for your time We really appreciate it. Sure. Thank you. Bye. Bye