[19941] in APO-L
Re: Shorten Legislative Session
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Cashman)
Sat Jan 23 22:45:46 1999
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 19:46:02 -0800
Reply-To: Derek Cashman <cashman@YAHOO.COM>
From: Derek Cashman <cashman@YAHOO.COM>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
I would have to strongly oppose any proposal that is designed to
shorten a legislative session that either limits the amount of
legislation proposed, or limits the proposal to getting approved by a
chapter first, as this would really weaken the democratic process and
not allow the voice of everyone to be heard. That's a bad idea.
The real key to shortening meeting times is to insure that your
leadership individuals are running the meetings effectively. If you
go through a meeting where 35 people have already basically spoken the
exact same views on the same topic, the chairperson running the
meeting is apparently either not doing his/her job, asleep, or smoking
crack! A smart committee chair will interrupt the discussion briefly
after the 5th or 6th person speaking the EXACT SAME view on a topic
and ask if anyone else has anything DIFFERENT to say, allow the
dissenting viewpoint to speak, and then move on. I've seen meetings
take place in which basically everyone in attendance had to speak
their voice first, and the vote was really close to unanimous.
Another thing a smart committee chair would do is to limit the amount
of subpeonas to a minimum. I've seen committees subpeona individuals
at early hours in the morning for the sole purpose of getting that
person out of bed and making them say something. That's just outright
wrong! Of course, there are times when a committee legitimately needs
to subpeona someone, but this should be kept to a minimum, so as not
to waste time.
I would suggest that all legislation to be proposed for the convention
should be submitted by September 1 before the convention, with voting
delegate selection and/or committee selection done by October 1. This
would give ample time for a committee to make contact and discuss a
game plan, and give the student committee chairs time to formulate a
plan on how they are going to organize their committee, and to become
familiar with, "Effective Ways to Run a Committee Meeting." (now that
would make one helluva sectional/regional conference workshop topic
;-) ... Chapters need to receive the proposed legislation for
nationals earlier, and moving the date to an earlier date would give
the national office more time to organize the information and submit
it to chapters. It would also still allow for sufficient time after
the summer CPWs for brothers to organize their proposals and submit
them to the national office (How many students really take classes in
August? That's the one month when there really are no classes, except
the last week when classes begin at most schools).
Well, I think I've said enough (more than 2 cents worth), so I'll stop
here and let you guys absorb this,...
;-)
==
_________________________________________________________
Derek Cashman (cashman@yahoo.com)
President; Richmond VA Alumni Association
Alpha Phi Omega
_________________________________________________________
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