Adding Consent Agenda to Rules

[John A]

I am parliamentarian (started this year) for a large professional society with a board of directors. The society uses RONR as the authority (specified in the by-laws), and the by-laws define the board of directors and that they will have "Rules" that they control. The Rules are essentially a more detailed description of the operation of the society that is controlled by the board rather than membership. Currently, the board only has 2 regular meetings per year and each meeting is about 5 hours long. Similar to other such groups, the first order of business after calling to order and establishing quorum is to adopt an agenda that was distributed at least 2 weeks before the meeting (along with background information for the items on the agenda).  After the agenda is adopted, the next item is the consent agenda, which I now recognize is called a consent calendar in RONR. The consent calendar items are listed on one page of the agenda and they are also specifically marked as such in the agenda. We use it pretty much exactly like RONR describes it and how I've seen it in other forum threads. RONR implies that using a consent agenda requires a special rule of order and as far as I've been able to tell, we don't have any such rules in the society by-laws or the board's Rules. There is a Rule that says "Except as otherwise provided, the conduct of Board Meetings shall be in accord with a current edition of "Robert’s Rules of Order."" and there is a similar by-law that defines procedure for the annual meeting of the membership. I have a few things I would like to clarify.

1. Provided that nobody brings up an objection (or point of order), the use of a consent agenda would be considered a "custom" of the board, but it's use should be formalized once it is determined that a special rule of order is required. I'm thinking this would also pre-empt anyone trying to derail the board meetings by calling a point of order and moving everything off of the consent calendar.
2. Since our "Rules" govern how the board does business, it would be appropriate place for a special rule of order to specify that the board uses a consent agenda. RONR does say that board can have their own special rules of order and a consent calendar is only used by the board.
3. If a special rule was created, it would seem better to change our terminology to use "calendar" instead of "agenda" since that is the term used in RONR. Since we've had several years of using "agenda", so it may cause some confusion at first.

Thanks in advance.

[Atul Kapur]

I agree with points 1 and 2.

3. I see no need to change the term you are used to using. Your Special Rules of Order supersede RONR so you don't need to be bound by its word  

[John A]

Thanks, Atul.

[Rob Elsman]

In addition to agreeing with Mr. Kapur's opinion on points 1 and 2, I also agree with point 3. Although there may, indeed, be some transitional confusion over the change in terms, in the long run, consistency in terminology will actually make things easier.

Edited April 17, 2019 at 01:03 PM by reelsman

[Dan Honemann]

Please note that, under the rules in RONR, matters placed on a consent calendar are not considered in gross, without debate or amendment, unless the special rule of order establishing the consent calendar so provides. This fact is sometimes overlooked when drafting such a special rule of order. 

[John A]

13 hours ago, reelsman said:

In addition to agreeing with Mr. Kapur's opinion on points 1 and 2, I also agree with point 3. Although there may, indeed, be some transitional confusion over the change in terms, in the long run, consistency in terminology will actually make things easier.

I’ll see what other members of my Rules Committee think about a name change. Change can be hard, but the name can also avoid confusion between agenda and consent agenda.

 

13 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

Please note that, under the rules in RONR, matters placed on a consent calendar are not considered in gross, without debate or amendment, unless the special rule of order establishing the consent calendar so provides. This fact is sometimes overlooked when drafting such a special rule of order. 

I’ll be sure to include that in my draft special rule. Thanks all.