Running community meetings is always a challenge, and one that gets more difficult with increasing numbers of students. Robert’s Rules are one approach that may be a bit formal but can be very useful for minimizing disruption and efficiently running meetings. It’s also a good idea for students to have a taste of parliamentary procedure.
There are the books (they sell the full, updated version as well as an abbreviated, “brief” version), but you can find the original for free (published in 1915 it’s well out of copyright, and some free basic primers online.
- Basic introduction: This one is fairly basic but will probably still need some explanation.
- 1915 version of Robert’s Rules: Full edition.
In Robert’s Rules, the order of precedence for things you can vote on is important. This handy table is quite useful.
The question remains, however, do I buy a gavel?