Motion vs. standing rule?

[woodpusher]

Hi, I'm the President of a Toastmaster club.

A few weeks ago, one of the members brought up about whether we should bring up evaluators to do speech previews. There is absolutely nothing in the constitution about meeting format. There is nothing in the bylaw skeleton about meeting format either. Clubs can append to the skeleton but there's a 300-character limit, and we used most of that up describing our meeting cancellation policy (see some of my previous posts). Toastmasters International must approve club bylaw amendments.

I told the club I thought that rules on meeting format belonged in "Standing rules."

(http://www.constitution.org/rror/rror-11.htm)

One of the members was not impressed with my research, and made a MOTION that it be at the toastmaster's discretion whether to have evaluators do speech previews. I asked the member if he wanted a STANDING RULE but he said no. Anyway the MOTION was seconded and passed.

The history of our club is mostly oral, and I couldn't find anything in the supply cabinet regarding any standing rules that might have been passed in the history of the club.

However I suppose we should get a notebook binder or something to keep track of motions and standing rules.

1. Is there any practical difference between a motion and a standing rule?

2. I suppose that if there is no physical record of a motion or standing rule, then it cannot be

enforced. Maybe the extant standing rules/motions should be distributed to the membership on

a regular basis?

3. My term expires at the end of June; my successor has been elected. Perhaps it is unimportant.

[jstackpo]

1. A motion is any item of business which could be the adoption of a "Standing Rule". A standing rule is something (adopted via motion in the past) that describes how particular things are to be done routinely, commonly administrative things.

2. So, keep good records -- your notebook suggestion is a good one. You could also print any current standing rules as an appendix (clearly marked as such) to your bylaws. And make the whole document freely available to everybody.

3. Time will tell.

Your web citation is NOT the right book. Get that here.

[Tim Wynn]

See RONR (11th ed.), p. 18, for Standing Rules.