SMARTEN UP @ THE ADULTSCHOOL

NOV 16, 2017/ Rose Bennett Gilbert

EXPERT ADVICE: HOW TO KEEP ORDER! ORDER! in MEETINGS

It's rumored that she's been known to wield a shoe for a gavel, Nikita Khrushchev-style. But the real inspiration for New Jersey's uber parliamentarian Michelle L. Bobrow is a l9th-century US Army general named Henry M. Robert.

Robert was a Brigadier General, a West Point graduate who knew his way around a battlefield but, the story goes, was flummoxed trying to preside over a contentious meeting at the First Baptist Church of California. There were no guidelines, no ground rules to help containthe boisterous crowd. Frustrated, the general himself took action: in l876 he devised and self-published his famous Robert's Rules of Order, based on accepted parliamentary practices. Today, there are some five-and-a-half million copies of his nearly 700-page rule book in circulation, bestowing order on high-level and local meetings all across the world.

Fast-forward to veteran parliamentarian Michelle Bobrow, a local New Jersey activist (National League of Women Voters, National Council of Jewish Women, Sisterhood Board of Temple Oheb Salom, volunteer Maplewood Citizens Budget Advisory Committee) and long-time officer in the National Association of Parliamentarians who regularlylays down Robert's Rules of Order for a slew of New Jersey organizations,includingassociations of School Boards, Realtors Boards, and Girls Scouts.

On Thursday evening, Nov. 16, Michelle will be teaching other local leaders How to Run an Effective Meeting in her one-off class at the SouthOrange-MaplewoodAdultSchool.

Maybe we were out of order to ask, but here's a preview of the expert's basic advice:

1. Create a written agenda. Distribute it in advance. People need time to be prepared. Follow the agenda at the meeting, working down though item by item.

2. Never forget thatyou, the president or chairman, are in charge. And don't be afraid to use your gavel to keep order (shoe optional).

3. Remember the formula for any successful meeting: half preparation, half confidence.

4. Also, know your subject. Most important, know that you know more than those you are presiding over.

5. Ditto: know your audience, no, make that audiences. Every audience is different. If yours is experienced in the subject under discussion, your presentation will be differentthan one for an audience of novices.

6. How to handle avid talkers who take over the floor? Remind them to stay on-topic.

In a general meeting, it's your job to see that only new information or new opinions are allowed. Otherwise, it's committee work, not appropriate at this meeting. Tell the talker to save it for the next time their committee convenes.

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