Consent Calendar

[Patricia Holliday]

What is considered "noncontroversial?"  I did not see a definition in RONR.  A committee's request for consideration of an item to be added to the consent calendar was not approved based on metrics that was used to determine what is considered controversial. Was this inappropriate.

[Atul Kapur]

Like beauty, "uncontroversial" is in the eye of the beholder. Actually, if you have metrics to help guide the decision, that's a step ahead of most organizations.

If there was enough opposition to putting the item on the consent calendar, then it probably would have been removed from the calendar when the opportunity for objections arose (your rules do provide such an opportunity, I trust).

[Patricia Holliday]

Unfortunately during this process I discovered there were no special rules of order created. They have been doing this as a custom practice. I plan to correct this.

[Rob Elsman]

I strongly recommend dropping the consent calendar. Except for societies that regularly have to handle an extraordinarily heavy volume of business, the consent calendar tends to suppress the deliberative process more than it helps the assembly to deal with its workload efficiently.

[Dan Honemann]

On 9/6/2020 at 11:08 AM, Patricia Holliday said:

Unfortunately during this process I discovered there were no special rules of order created. They have been doing this as a custom practice. I plan to correct this.

As well you should. If no special rule of order (or bylaw provision) was adopted establishing a consent calendar, you haven't got one.