President to Start Following RONR & Discussion without a motion

[Daniel S.]

I have recently become the President of a youth sports association with 10 board members. In the four years that I have been a member of the board in other capacities our board meetings have been very casual and in my opinion in need of a formal setting to increase efficiency, fairness, and productivity. The first meeting that I will be presiding over is one week away. Our Bylaws state "Robert's Rules shall govern at all meetings" so from a rule standpoint I should have no problem asking my fellow board members that I would like to start going down this path. I have never had the chance to observe a meeting that follows RONR so I am going in with just preparing my self by studying out of the RONR Book and the official "In Brief" book.

So with all of that said I have to get the folks on board with the changes, maintain the continuity of the board and keep up the momentum of the meeting. Here is the challenge that I am currently working out in my head. From what I understand for discussion to take place on a particular subject a motion has been made, but what if a subject needs to be brought up so that discussion can take place in order to make a clear and sensible motion. I do not find where RONR speaks to this situation.
 

[Hieu H. Huynh]

See "Procedure in small boards" in RONR 11th ed., pp. 487-488.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

45 minutes ago, Daniel S. said:

From what I understand for discussion to take place on a particular subject a motion has been made,

but what if a subject needs to be brought up so that discussion can take place in order to make a clear and sensible motion.

I do not find where RONR speaks to this situation.

That is a pretty fuzzy description.  I do not know what you mean by "what if a subject needs to be brought up so that discussion can take place".

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If you have a motion which cannot be adopted or rejected due to incomplete information, then the two most popular "solutions" are these:

(a.) To postpone the motion -- to a later hour, or to the next meeting. -- However long you think you need to obtain the data, and to get that data distributed to the appropriate parties.

(b.) To refer the motion to a committee -- so that a subset of members can do the homework, make the phone calls, write the letters, do the legwork, etc., and thus accrue the material or information into a committee report, which will contain the committee's best recommendation. Or two or three!

[Bruce Lages]

This is probably the specific statement you're looking for:

"Informal discussion of a subject is permitted while no motion is pending"  (RONR, 11th ed. p. 488,ll.7-8, under the heading PROCEDURE IN SMALL BOARDS on p. 487).

Small boards are defined in RONR as consisting of not more than about a dozen members.

[Joshua Katz]

Agreeing with the above, I still get a little squeamish when all we can say in defense of a rule is "well, you're allowed to break it."  I'm also nervous when I read something like the OP.  So let me chime in with this:  it should not be the case that a subject has to be tossed around aimlessly until a sensible motion can be developed.  Yes, I'm aware this is what happens in many organizations, but it is still a waste of time and a symptom of poor planning.  Instead, what should happen is that people come to meetings prepared.  Instead of saying "I dunno, I just wanted to talk about what to do at the picnic," a member should be ready to say "I move that we allocate $5000 for the picnic in order to purchase food and rent gerbil balls."  

Why?  Because this gives a discussion with a point - either we're going to do what was proposed, or we're not.  We avoid the problem of person after person speaking on their vision of the picnic, with no real connection between the various comments made.  We fight the urge to turn parliamentary procedure into some form of decision by consensus, where something is kicked around until a person says "okay, I think I can make a motion that will make people happy."  Instead, we have a point the whole time, giving us a shorter, purposeful debate.  If we want to do things differently, fine, that's what amend is for - and while amend is pending, we can talk about just what we propose to change, thus, once again, keeping the discussion from veering off into the ether.  

Finally, things can be brought up enough ahead of time that the body, if it chooses, can commit the question.  This is a good thing to do when members bring half-baked ideas to the body - it says "finish cooking this, and then bring it back."  In many well-functioning organizations, most proposals come up under committee reports, not new business.  

So, in short - discouraging discussion without a pending motion encourages people to come in with fully-formed ideas for the body to accept or reject, rather than vague dreams for the body to interpret.

[Richard Brown]

12 hours ago, Godelfan said:

Agreeing with the above, I still get a little squeamish when all we can say in defense of a rule is "well, you're allowed to break it."  . . . .

So, in short - discouraging discussion without a pending motion encourages people to come in with fully-formed ideas for the body to accept or reject, rather than vague dreams for the body to interpret.

Perhaps that is so in theory, but I don't believe it works out that way in real life, especially in small boards.  I have seen many examples of where a little informal discussion led to what I believe were much better decisions (sometimes a decision to do nothing) and many more examples of where a little informal, unstructured discussion would have led to a MUCH better outcome than the ones reached using the structured, formal process... especially when the original motion and first one or two amendments are poorly thought out.  A little informal discussion often saves time, rather than costing time. I firmly believe it can lead to better decisions, at least in small groups.

As to whether having some informal discussion prior to making a formal motion in a small board of ten members, like the one the OP is referring to, RONR says specifically that this is not breaking a rule but is in fact often the preferred procedure.  From page 487:  " In a board meeting where there are not more than about a dozen members present, some of the formality that is necessary in a large assembly would hinder business. The rules governing such meetings are different from the rules that hold in other assemblies, in the following respects: "   (Emphasis added).

[Daniel S.]

Thank you all for pointing me in the right direction. 487-488 seem to speak to this directly. We shall see how I do!

[Kim Goldsworthy]

Rare, but I have seen this done in a board meeting:

   • Adopt a motion to dedicate ten minutes [or whatever time you wish] to brain storm on the subject of 'X'.

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You'll chew up 10 (or 20) minutes of meeting time, is the down-side.

The plus-side is that you get incredible rapid fire, back-and-forth exchanges, at 10x the speed which formal parliamentary rules would allow.

***

To quote The Rolling Stones:
"Everyone gets their ya-yas out" (of their system).