Since my tenure began as your Buchanan County Extension Director I am getting more familiar with the structure of our county. One of my duties is to identify need and address different possible ways to meet these needs. One of these needs is training in parliamentary procedure. Our educational system provides limited if any basic parliamentary procedure training. FFA and 4-H do provide some training in the basics of running a meeting and parliamentary procedure, but unless you participate in parliamentary procedure or conduct of meeting contests, there is limited depth to the training. 4-H community clubs often will provide some basic training, but it is not a requirement and there is no standard curriculum for the training.
Without training and true understanding of parliamentary procedure there are many fears that can develop. There are also myths that are associated with parliamentary procedure due to a lack of understanding. The following is a list of myths associated with the use of parliamentary procedure.
It is only used by the legislative and judicial branches of the government
It will cause our meetings to run longer
It is too hard to learn and use
It will make our meetings boring
It will stop me from getting to say what I want
It puts the power in the hands of too few people
It makes the minutes hard to write and understand
Our group doesn’t have to use it
Our meetings won’t be fun anymore
We won’t get anything done at our meetings
No one talks like that
It’s too formal
I developed this list from my thirteen years of teaching and from working with different groups implementing parliamentary procedure into their programming. The fact is that with proper basic training in parliamentary procedure all of these myths can be easily countered.
A common question that I get from groups is how do we know if we are in need of parliamentary procedure in our group? The following is a list of signs that there is a need. If your group is experiencing any of these signs you need training in parliamentary procedure:
You leave a meeting and:
you are not sure what you accomplished
you never herd the words; “I move that or I move to”
you never herd the word “Second”
you can’t name anyone who is going to take responsibility for anything
you realize that there was at least one time when the group was discussing more than one thing at once
there was at least one item of business to which there was no vote
you are still frustrated that you couldn’t get a word in edgewise
you noticed that there were several conversations that were between two people and not directed to the group
you recall that less than three people did all the talking
you noticed that there was less than 10% of the membership present
you looked at your watch and you had been at the meeting more that 1.5 hours
you remember that when the minutes were read there was never a mention of who said what, and phrases like “ It was discussed” and
“ The group discussed” were frequently included;
you recall that the secretary exhibited a high degree of frustration
you are frustrated because when you tried to say something you were interrupted and left to feel stupid
you wonder if you organization gets anything done outside of the meeting
As a practicing parliamentarian I am willing to assist any club with starting or improving their parliamentary procedure skills. If you would like more information, training materials or assistance please give me a call the Buchanan County Extension Office at 319-334-7161.
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