Short Helper Snippet on Which motions do **not** require a "second"

["Stefan Hagen" <stefan@hagen.link>]

Dear members,

soon we will start collaborating and thus will create motions

during meetings or per email on our TC mailing list.

Every member shall be able to easily provide minutes to capture

the "trace" of the meeting in a correct way. 

Note: I may take some freedom in interpretation and simplify things

in the "wall of text" to come, but only in the hope it helps

the members new to OASIS to understand that these rules

shall ease collaboration and progress towards our chartered goals.

These rules are just a means to an end, not an end in themselves.

So, OASIS TCs (technical committees) operate under Robert's Rules

which help to streamline meetings and in general ease decision finding

and documentation thereof as a group.

Esp. with online meetings it is crucial, that "hearing none" is

interpreted as consensus or being in favor of a "proposal"

to discuss or decide a "topic" and move on swiftly.

Such proposals are called motions and have to be made and supported

by voting members.

A group has to decide how the group spends the time during meetings, i.e.

which topics to discuss when. Otherwise - esp. in rare times

of missing consensus - a single member could dominate

all progress and detract others from continuing to support the group.

After all, ideally, a group should be more than just the sum of its participants.

To ensure this principle, all but a few motion types require a second.

A second is another voting member (than the one requesting the motion)

that also is in favor of discussing a topic before **any** discussion happens

on that "topic".

There are three special motions during every meeting which are required

to be dealt with to not have a halting problem during meetings. These are:

1. motion for approval of the agenda for the meeting

2. motion for approval of the minutes of previous meetings

3. motion to adjourn the meeting

The reason for exempting those motions from requiring a second is

that by coming together for a meeting the group already committed to:

1. process the items of some to be agreed agenda (no meeting without agenda)

2. approve a trail of minutes for traceability and "closure" (always a trace)

3. keep the processing time finite (clear)

So, in meeting minutes there is no need for noting something noisy like

the following in these three special cases (example: agenda approval):

    Member Wun moved to approve the agenda.

    Member Two seconded.

    No objections, unanimous consent.

    The motion carries.

But instead we can simply note (example with an added item)):

    Member Three suggests to discuss Foo under AOB.

    The agenda at _link_ amended as above was approved.

And similarly for the other two motion types (example wording only):

    The minutes at _link_ of the previous meeting were approved.

as well as:

   The meeting was adjourned.

Note: only voting members can issue motions, second motions,

and speak up to discuss motions during meetings.

These mechanisms may seem clumsy and bureaucratic, but

in reality they accelerate the conduction of sustainable business and

help keeping a transparency log of decisions as required by

the nature and charter of OASIS (you remember, it is oasis-open ...)

All will become much easier to understand and use

as soon as the first few meetings will have been conducted :-)

Next up:

I intend to provide short info snippets (like this) with more specific examples

once we are in command of our GitHub OASIS TC repository.

The upcoming snippets (still per email) in this "series" will be:

- How to register the participation to a "normal" TC meeting

  (those counting towards voting rights)

- How to request Permanent Non-Voting Member status with the TC

  (spoiler alert: a simple mail to the tc mailing list addressing the chairs)

- How to transition from Observer to Member status

  (spoiler alert: leave the TC and join again as member)

- How to request a once per year Leave of Absence

  (spoiler alert: usually an over used feature IMO)

- How motions can be conducted per e-mail

  (there are many ways, just listing one way that works)

Previously:

- How to ensure accessibility {mail to the list 2023-APR-03}

  (by using publicly accessible URLs for minutes, issues, etc.)

All the best,

Stefan

Stefan Hagen, Emmetten, Nidwalden, Switzerland.

orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4206-892X

read: https://stefan-hagen.website

write: stefan@hagen.link