Hi All! After being a member of this forum for a few months and reading through hundreds of threads, I feel comfortable enough to start answering questions that get posted here. I know there's a disclaimer that we generally will not know the background or reliability of persons posting responses. I thought to provide a little background on myself. You can check my LinkedIn profile for my professional background. I got started in parliamentary procedure when I became president of the local chapter in my non-profit organization over 6 years ago. It was quite a crash course since I did not have much experience in being a presiding officer beforehand. After a while, I learned enough to be able to teach the basics of parliamentary procedure to others (using a 1-hour program my organization has called "Parliamentary Procedure in Action"). A few months ago after witnessing a meeting that was, let's say, not well-run (there was a 10-minute discussion on whether or not to read the minutes), I decided to go deeper. At that time, all the materials I had were based on Robert's Rules, but not the actual book. So I got a copy of the right book, RONR, and started reading it. I also joined this forum and started reading the posts. A few months later, I finished reading the book! And I have a much better understanding of it by reading the posts in this forum! So I'm curious, how did you get started in parliamentary procedure and Robert's Rules? What made you want to get into this unique area of knowledge? I would love to hear from the regulars to this forum... Hieu H Huynh (you can use my initials, HHH, to respond to me if you're afraid of mis-spelling my name) (bonus points if you know how to pronounce my name or can spell it phonetically)