PROPOSAL TO THE COORDINATING COMMITTEE July 2003 Approved July 7, 2003 by CC vote at teleconference. AUTHORS: Jim Stauffer, 408-432-9148, jims@greens.org Jo Chamberlain, 650-726-1949, joc@greens.org SUBJECT: Formation of a permanent Agenda Committee SUMMARY: This is a proposal to form a permanent Agenda Committee and to expands its authority to include those issues related to a General Assembly meeting for which the Coordinating Committee is responsible, as detailed below. For its initial formation, the Agenda Committee is proposed to be an ad hoc committee under the CC. This is defined as a "Special Group" in section 6-1.1 of the bylaws. As such, the committee has a maximum life of two years. We can revisit making this a permanent Standing Committee at any time. The committee should have 5 - 7 appointed members, per section 6-1.3. The host county or local will provide a liaison to the Agenda Committee. The initial actions of this committee will be to formulate the procedures discussed in this proposal. BACKGROUND: Despite more than a decade of hosting General Assembly meetings, we are still having difficulty getting routine tasks accomplished. This adversely affects the efficiency of the meetings, and it can have legal ramifications (for example, minutes and quorum requirements). Problems stem from a lack of consistency and knowledge in the current agenda committee structure, no one assigned responsibility for certain items, and an absence of procedures and guides for routine tasks. PROPOSAL DETAILS: The Agenda Committee will be responsible for (in chronological order from the conclusion of a General Assembly): ++ Post-plenary report. The primary purpose of this report is to notify Locals of the date and location of the next meeting, provide the agenda submittal deadline, describe the agenda submittal process, and (when possible) list a summary of decisions from the concluded meeting. This should be within a week after the meeting. ++ Meeting minutes. Follow-up with the host committee and/or notetakers to ensure the minutes are completed. This should be within two weeks after the meeting. (Some concern about whether or not this can really be done in two weeks.) Quality of the minutes also becomes an issue occasionally. Hiring a dictation professional, or taping the meetings and hiring a transcriber are possibilities. ++ Agenda reminder. Send a reminder to standing group cocos regarding the proposal submittal deadline. This should be 10 weeks before the next meeting. ++ Agenda preparation. (See discussion below.) Develop a more systemic process to assemble the agenda and schedule. ++ Front desk. (See discussion below.) The CC needs to assume some responsibility for the front desk, and to develop firm guidelines that the host committee must follow. The Agenda Committee will develop a process to ensure all attendees are registered in a timely manner and that delegates are verified and accurately issued delegate cards. ++ Quorum. (See discussion below.) We have become too lax about following our bylaw requirements for establishing and verifying quorum. We should develop a "quick reference" guide for use by facilitators. This guide can include a worksheet filled out by the delegate verification table with the statistics for the current meeting. ++ Facilitation. The CC should determine the facilitation teams for the next plenary so that information can be included in the agenda packet. This would also allow facilitators and presenters to discuss and plan difficult presentations before the meeting. ===================================================== AGENDA PREPARATION DISCUSSION The AgComm for the Sacramento meeting started with a listing of all requested and required agenda items. Using this list as a log to record discussions/decisions on each item will help organize the effort. Development of the schedule as soon as the agenda items are known helps in balancing the schedule. Ensure all proposals are in the standardized format and has all needed information. The Coordinating Committee will have final approval of the agenda. FRONT DESK DISCUSSION The front desks from the Santa Clara (1/03) and San Mateo (9/01) meetings are good models. Separate the meeting registration from the delegate verification. All attendees must sign-in, pay fees, pick up handouts, etc. Sign-in sheets alphabetically organized by county work best. After registering, delegates are sent to the delegate table for verification and to have a delegate card issued. Delegate verification must occur both Saturday and Sunday mornings. Print outs of pre-registered attendees and delegate lists from the registration database should be used. The delegate verification table needs to determine quorum and report it to the facilitators. This proposal makes the Accreditation Committee part of the new Agenda Committee. QUORUM DISCUSSION The bylaws describe a two-segment quorum process (section 5-4). The Bylaws committee recently discussed some of the ambiguities in the existing requirements. The following interpretation of the two segments is consistent with the outcome of that discussion: 1. Quorum to open the meeting. The "meeting" is the entire weekend. Two-thirds of regions with active counties must be represented (by a delegate) to open the meeting on Saturday morning. 2. Decision quorum. Eighty percent of registered delegates must be present to make a decision. Delegates are required to register (at the delegate verification table) at the beginning of each session (Saturday and Sunday are each a session). Facilitators are required to perform a roll call at the beginning of each session. This can be interpreted as the facilitators obtaining the daily delegate count from the verification table. Section 5-8.9 of the bylaws requires facilitators to verify that a quorum exists during the presentation of all decision items. This is where they determine that 80% of registered delegates are participating in the decision process. We bylaws folks discussed the following options for conducting this count: 1. Facilitators call out delegate numbers in sequence, noting which numbers are missing. 2. Delegates call out their numbers in sequence, facilitators noting which numbers are missing. 3. Monitor delegates entering and leaving the meeting room. This could be by a manual or automated system. After some discussion most of us agreed that #3 would be difficult to implement. This has also been tried a few times without success. We've estimated that a numbered roll call should take 2-3 minutes. #1 and #2 show two ways to accomplish this, and it may be a matter of experimentation to determine which works best. Another suggested alternative is to only do a roll call at the beginning of each day and after each lunch. This is a deviation from the bylaws and would require General Assembly concurrence at the beginning of each meeting (until the bylaw is changed). Historically, Sunday afternoon is the time that presents difficulty in establishing quorum. A quorum count before decisions during this period may be necessary if the crowd appears to be thinning. Those who assemble the agenda schedule should be mindful of this when scheduling decision-items. Another issue to be resolved is whether or not to collect delegate cards each time a delegate leaves the plenary session, and whether or not to collect the cards at the end of the Saturday meeting session. OTHER ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION Should the name of the committee be changed? It now involves more than the agenda. It's more of a state meeting organizing committee. To what extent should the CC manage or oversee the recording of meeting minutes and the registration process at the front desk? Some host committees have done these tasks well, and some have not. Guidelines exist or can be generated. The Plenary Cookbook is an excellent resource that hosts should be encouraged to follow. To what degree do we require and oversee the hosting committee's handling of these tasks?