Its a fair and structured way of operating an organization to ensure ethical behavior, documentation and professionalism.
Many bylaws are written based on Robert's Rules as well as meeting structures. Just let them know that it will make sure that all bases are covered, its a fair and productive meeting and it leaves little room for conflicts and negative behavior
I think it is best to say that in order to run any meeting in an organized manner there has to be some sort of structure placed over the event to ensure everyone knows how to proceed. Luckily, there's a set of rules that many, many groups follow called Robert's Rules. Your group is going to base it's meetings on the procedures prescribed by RR in order to ensure that a standard approach to business is maintained.
Then you could lay out what a basic agenda looks like and those rules that you feel are key to good order within the group (like motions, and seconds etc), being recognized to speak, adaptation of limits to the time a topic is discussed, tabling of issue....etc. I doubt many of us follow RR to a tee, but do reserve the right to revert to them when there is a question of procedural structure for a meeting.
The rules are a guide, not a hinderance, and are in existance because of the chaos that can occur when there is no "rule book" for a meeting. It is the most fair approach to ensure that meetings are effective, productive and not just "dinner time chatting" for the attendees.
Hope this helps.
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Hey, I am a new PTO President and I want to introduce Robert's Rules, but many of the parents do not know about RR, can anyone hep me with the easiest way to explain it to them and how do I introduce it to them, I don't want to overwhelm them yet i do want to bring order and proferessionalism into place. Got any ideas?
