Re: Rough language for CT 1-7

[Jon Bosak <bosak@boethius.eng.sun.com>]

[karl.best@oasis-open.org:]

> The OASIS committee taxonomy would then look something like this:
>
>    1. Board of directors (Article 3)
>       a. Executive committee of the board (Article 5 Section 1)
>       b. Advisory committees of the board (Article 5 Section 2)
>          (i) Subcommittees of advisory committees (RRO per
>              Art. 5 Sect. 3 by implication)
>    3. Ordinary committees of the membership
>       (RRO per Article 13 by implication)
>       a. Special (select, ad hoc) committees (RRO)
>       b. Standing committees (RRO)
>       c. Committees of the whole (RRO)
>    4. Technical Committees (new Article of the bylaws)
>       a. Ordinary technical committees (TCs, new article)
>          (i) Subcommittees of TCs (RRO per the new article)
>       b. Joint committees (JCs, new article)
>          (i) Subcommittees of JCs (RRO per the new article)

Sorry, I misnumbered that; it should read:

    1. Board of directors (Article 3)
       a. Executive committee of the board (Article 5 Section 1)
       b. Advisory committees of the board (Article 5 Section 2)
          (i) Subcommittees of advisory committees (RRO per
              Art. 5 Sect. 3 by implication)
    2. Ordinary committees of the membership
       (RRO per Article 13 by implication)
       a. Special (select, ad hoc) committees (RRO)
       b. Standing committees (RRO)
       c. Committees of the whole (RRO)
    3. Technical Committees (new Article of the bylaws)
       a. Ordinary technical committees (TCs, new article)
          (i) Subcommittees of TCs (RRO per the new article)
       b. Joint committees (JCs, new article)
          (i) Subcommittees of JCs (RRO per the new article)

Note that everything in parts 1 and 2 of this list is what we've
already got (directly or by implication) in our current bylaws.
We're here to put in place number 3 because the committees in 1
and 2 are not what we want.

| Do we need a distinction between Ordinary committees (3 above) and
| Technical Committees (4)? We can tweak the RROR operating rules
| for various types, so we don't need to create a new type (4) just
| because it doesn't fit exactly what RROR says (3) does.

No, that won't work.  Robert's view of a committee is a specific
group of people appointed for a specific purpose by a creating
body.  It consists of exactly the people appointed by that body;
it exists at the pleasure of that body; and its function is to
report back to that body.  Committing an issue (see the motion to
commit) is an alternative to passing a resolution, killing it, or
tabling it.  So in Robert's, a committee is a device for putting
the resolution of an issue facing an assembly onto a subset of the
assembly instead.

TCs are entirely different -- they are autonomous bodies (like
assemblies) with their own charters and a very different model of
membership maintenance.  I believe that this is why ANSI (which
also uses Robert's) has to go to such lengths to specify the rules
for technical committees and why our own charter has to specify
special procedures for the board of directors and committees of
the board instead of just leaving it up to Robert's as it does in
the case of the membership in general.

If you try to use Robert's idea of committee operation you end up
with what we created a few months ago: an advisory committee (the
ACTC) that exists simply in order to provide something that can
legally create technical committees and change their membership
when necessary.  But this is messy and doesn't scale.

What we can do, if we're careful, is to use Robert's for all the
*subcommittees* of a TC.

Jon