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The
invitation to join read: “a fun and interesting way to learn
parliamentary procedure.” Yeah,
right! In my opinion, there is nothing more boring or complicated
than parliamentary procedure, that is until I attended a demo
meeting of the Parliamentary Procedure Toastmasters Club #1554 in
Bloomington, Minnesota. What
prompted me to choose to do that is mystery to me.
However, I am was delighted I did because I witnessed first
hand the fun way they had while learning a very useful leadership
skill.
The
meeting was conducted in a familiar Toastmasters format, complete
with Table Topics, Speakers and Evaluators, but with a twist.
If
table topics have become old hat for you, the table topics of this
club will give you a renewed challenge.
The Table Topics Master selects different chairmen to conduct
a 3-4 minute business meeting using parliamentary procedure.
It starts with a member making a motion from the floor.
For example: “Madam Chairman, I move that Santa Claus wear
green this year instead of red.”
Once
the motion was made and seconded, the motion belongs to the
assembly. A series of
subsidiary motions can be made and debated, all relating to the main
motion; however, only one of the subsidiary motions is the
immediately pending question.
It
is the presiding officer‘s (the
chairman’s) responsibility to accept motions and to keep track of
the action on the immediately pending question before moving to a
lower pending question.
This
club exemplifies Toastmaster’s founder, Dr. Ralph Smedley’s
philosophy that people learn best in moments of enjoyment.
The members’ helped each other and made it fun for the
chairman by adding humor to their:
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Amendments,
(“Madam Chairman, I move to amend to the motion, that the word
“green” be changed to “plaid.”)
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Discussions,
(Madam Chairman, I would like to speak to amendment.
I think it should be green plaid.”)
and
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The
points of information (Madam Chairman, are we talking about all
green or green and white?).
It
is accepted by the National Association of Parliamentarians that the
term “Chair” belongs to the title of the office and gender
belongs to Mister or Madam. Therefore,
in an organization where there are more women than men,
“Chairman” is appropriate because it belongs to the title.
Here’s another way to look at it—if you switch chairperSON
for chairMAN, you are
just switching the problem.
In
addition to an oral evaluation of the speaker and the overall
meeting, the Table Topic Chairmen were evaluated.
I was amazed at how much I learned from those evaluations.
The meeting was so enjoyable that I have considered joining
the club, but it would be quite a commute from Colorado.
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