Parliamentary Procedure

Parliamentary procedure is the system of procedures that govern how a business meeting is run. It serves the prurpose of seeing that everyone gets to have their say and that the majority has its way. It controls the steps of debate to keep things running efficiently.

That having been said there are a few minor concerns:

• Most people don't know parliamentary procedure which can make meetings slow and inefficient
• There is the fear that one person who does know parliamentary procedure can somehow shanghai the meeting
• Those people who know something about Parliamentary procedure know just enough to be dangerous and when two of them meet they can come to loggerheads because they don't know as much as they think they do

That having been said, the solution is to have enough people who know Parliamentary procedure and how to apply it, with common sense and good judgement, and have a meeting that runs efficently while allowing everyone to be heard.

If you think there's nothing amusing about Parliamentary procedure then see my page on Humor in Parliamentary Procedure.

Pamphlet for CCAT's seminar on Parliamentary procedure, held the 5 consecutive Wednesday meetings beginning November 11th, 2009  November 11th, December 9th, January 13th, February 10th, March 10th

Brochure in PDF form