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Agendas/Order of Business


Guest PatLee

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I have a couple of questions:

1:  What is the difference between the Order of Business and an Agenda?  Does a written agenda have to follow the Robert's Rules Order of Business?  

2:  Who writes the agenda/order of business.  Our president has always written the agenda, but recently our secretary has stated it is her job to write the order of business and is assuming the authority for this.  

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Even if you use the standard order of business (which most organizations should find more than adequate), it is helpful to prepare a list of items that are expected to come up during the meeting - e.g., which of the various committees will be reporting, items that were carried over from the last meeting that will come up under unfinished business, motions for which previous notice has been given that should come up under new business - and consider this as an agenda, albeit an informal one. RONR suggests that the presiding officer, with the help of the secretary, should prepare such an agenda (p.353, l.27 - p. 354, l.3)

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On 3/11/2017 at 3:20 PM, Guest PatLee said:

 

1:  What is the difference between the Order of Business and an Agenda?  Does a written agenda have to follow the Robert's Rules Order of Business?  

2:  Who writes the agenda/order of business.  Our president has always written the agenda, but recently our secretary has stated it is her job to write the order of business and is assuming the authority for this.  

Reply to #1:

An order of business is a fixed set of CLASSES of business.

One's order of business never (well, hardly ever) changes, from meeting to meeting, from year to year.

An agenda is a specific set of business, EACH ITEM OF WHICH falls under the appropriate CLASS OF BUSINESS of one's order of business.

Thus, under your fixed "order of business", you will have, in your next regular meeting,  ". . . reports from officers . . .". -- Under this class, you may list "Henry, finance committee; Samantha, St. Patrick's Day Parade committee; Boswell, clubhouse repair committee."

Your agenda will change with every meeting. Your order of business will rarely, if ever, change.

***

Reply to #2:

Your order of business is fixed, per your parliamentary authority.

Your organization is free to amend the order of business and customize its order, or customized a unique class of business.

No secretary, no president, gets to mess with the order of business. -- The order of business is fixed by rule.

One's agenda must be drafted by someone. Usually this falls to the president or to the secretary, or to both.

Someone ought to hold a memorandum of people who are ready to report.

In theory, you don't need an agenda. You would just call off the classes of business, and dynamically prompt the members for appropriate business.

(e.g., "We are now doing committee reports. Are there any committee chairmen ready to report?")

***

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On ‎3‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 6:20 PM, Guest PatLee said:

I have a couple of questions:

1:  What is the difference between the Order of Business and an Agenda?  

This is not a question easily answered. As noted in the first paragraph of Section 41 of RONR (11th ed.):

"The terms order of business, orders of the day, agenda, and program refer to closely related concepts having to do with the order in which business is taken up in a session (8) and the scheduling of particular business. The meaning of these terms often coincides, although each has its own applications in common usage."

After reading the rest of Section 41 two or three times, you may well understand what this is all about.  :)

 

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