Re: Agenda and Parliamentary Procedure for the FTF meeting

[Heather_Hinton@tivoli.com]

Bob,
I don't know Robert's rules, but according to Bourinot's Rules (of Sir John
George Bourinot, one time Clerk of the House of Commons), a motion to
accept minutes is the same as any other motion. If it is defeated, "it may
not be re-introduced except in the form of a new proposal sufficiently
varied in its terms to consititute a different quesiton, and the House
itself may determine whether or not it does in fact constitute a new
question". I too have never seen minutes defeated, but I have seen them
tabled (see below) or sent back for further clarification to be taken up at
the next meeting.

Also, you should probably brush up on/provide a refresher course on
- calling the question (the precedence of, debatability of, and voting
required on)
- tabling a motion (which means putting an issue aside to allow other
business to proceed and then coming back to it at a later time in the same
meeting)
Another point: in Bourinot, you must have quorum to adjourn a meeting. So
make sure you do this before everyone runs off to the airport :)

heather

ps I have a copy of Bourinot at my desk if you want to look at it

Heather Hinton, PhD,
Senior Security Architect
Tivoli eZone Solutions Design
6300 Bridgepoint Parkway
Building IV, B4001
Austin, TX 78731
e-mail: hhinton@tivoli.com
Telephone: +1:(512)436-1538
Fax: +1(512)436-9411


George_Robert_Blakley_III@tivoli.com on 02/25/2001 10:40:47 PM

To:   security-services@lists.oasis-open.org
cc:
Subject:  Agenda and Parliamentary Procedure for the FTF meeting



All,

Robert's rules of order impose some constraints on the way a meeting
may be run, and how it may consider and dispose of documents.

In order to be most productive, we need to use Robert's rules to do the
things they were intended to do.  Specifically, we need to use Robert's
rules
to record areas where we have reached consensus, and to refer things we
don't
have consensus about back to committees for more work and recommendations.

I don't want to go into parliamentary procedure in too much theoretical
detail
here.  However, a few points are in order (no pun intended).

First, parliamentary procedure strictly limits the kind of things we can
talk
about.  We can basically consider two kinds of things: the report of a
subcommittee,
or a motion from a member of the full committee to take some action.

To the greatest extent possible, I hope we can work by acting on the
recommendations
of subcommittees, since these are the forums in which we do most of our
(offline and
telecon) work.  If we feel something serious is missing and needs to be
dealt with
immediately, or if there's a point of procedure or other constraint on our
operations
we wish to make which we don't want to have reflected in the final
document, then we
can deal with it as a motion from the floor.

When considering a subcommittee's recommended text, we need to carefully
avoid simply
voting down a motion to adopt the text which a subcommittee has produced.
Doing this
would have a couple of bad effects:
     (i) it would cause us to lose the benefits of the debates we've
already
          had online and the ones we'll have at the FTF, and
     (ii) at least formally, it would require the subcommittees to start
over
          from scratch on the sections they've worked on.  It might
actually
          formally end the work of the subcomittee and force us to
constitute
          a new subcommittee.
Therefore, instead of voting against adoption of a subcommittee's report if
we feel
it isn't finished or needs to be fixed, we should make a motion to REFER
the matter
back to the subcommittee for more work, probably with specific instructions
about
what we want done.  The motion to Refer takes precedence over both the main
motion
(i.e. the one to adopt the subcommittee's report) and any amendments to the
main
motion, so we can use it to send the subsection back to the subcomittee as
soon as we
feel we've stopped making progress in the FTF, while still preserving the
progress we
HAVE made in the body of the amended document and in the instructions to
the subcommittee.

With these points in mind, here's how I imagine the meeting will go:

1. Call to order
2. Roll call to determine quorum (the remainder of this assumes we pass the
quorum requirement)
3. Motion (and vote) to approve the minutes of the previous meeting
     (as a personal aside, I have no idea what happens if this motion fails
-- I've
     never seen it fail.  If anyone knows, I'd be happy to learn this.)
4. Motion (and vote) to approve the agenda for this meeting
5. Motion to adopt Bob's recommended outline as the outline for our final
specification
     5a. Motions to Amend this motion; debate and vote on each amendment
     5b. Vote on the motion to adopt, OR Motion to Commit the outline to a
new subcomittee
          (one of these votes should PASS!)
6. Motion to adopt the recommendation of the use cases and requirements
subcommittee as the
     use cases and requirements subsection of our final specification
     6a. Motions to Amend this motion (these should take the form of
amendments recommending
          specific changes to the text of the use cases and requirements
document,
          especially amendments recommending inclusion or exclusion of
specific content)
          6ai. Debate and vote on each amendment
     6b. Motion to Refer the document back to the use cases and
requirements subcomittee
          6bi. Debate on the instructions to the subcommittee
          6bii. Vote on the motion to refer (this motion should PASS!)
7. Motion to adopt the recommendation of the core assertions subcommittee
as the core
     assertions subsection of our final specification
     7a.
          7ai.
     7b.                 (All same as in section 6)
          7bi.
          7bii.
8. Motion to adopt the recommendation of the protocols subcommittee as the
protocols
     subsection of our final specification
     8a.
          8ai.
     8b.                 (All same as in section 6)
          8bi.
          8bii.
9. Motion to adopt the recommendation of the core assertions subcommittee
as the core
     assertions subsection of our final specification
     9a.
          9ai.
     9b.                 (All same as in section 6)
          9bi.
          9bii.
10. Call for new business
11. Motion to adjourn

If we all agree that this is how things should happen, then the following
agenda should
be followed (with two omissions not relevant to our first FTF, this is the
standard
Roberts' agenda for a meeting).  Motions from the floor would be taken
during the "New
Business" segment:

1. Call to Order
2. Reading and approval of minutes of past meeting
3. Reading and approval of agenda
4. Reports of standing subcommittees
5. New Business

--bob

Bob Blakley
Chief Scientist
Enterprise Solutions Unit
Tivoli Systems, Inc. (an IBM Company)


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