As you’ll quickly come to learn, Robert’s Rules is a lifesaver; without it, there would be absolutely no order in HOSA meetings! If at any point you wish to learn more about parli pro and go in-depth on the topics that I cover in these articles, make sure to check out Robert’s Rules for yourself (which comes in two editions; a brief edition, as seen above, and a full edition, which is the size of a large dictionary).
But none of this matters if you don’t have a person to run the meeting and make sure that parli pro is followed. This is where the chair comes in… not the chair seen below, but the chairperson! The chair is a person elected to run a meeting and make certain that the parliamentary authority is followed. They are commonly elected to serve a term of a year or more, in which case they are given a special title: president.
As anyone who’s been to an extracurricular meeting knows, it is very rare for every member to attend every meeting. However, it is also
unfair for business to be conducted and decisions to be made by a minority of members. This is why quorum exists. Quorum is the minimum number of members who must be present at a meeting in order to make any decisions. For instance, a HOSA chapter may have a quorum of 15 members. If less than 15 members are in attendance at a meeting, business cannot be conducted at that meeting (but more on that in a later edition).
In order to most efficiently run meetings, a standard order of business should be followed. As the name implies, the order of business is the order in which events are carried out during a meeting. On the next page, I set up a chart which describes the most common order of business. If your HOSA chapter does not currently have a standard order of business, I would highly recommend using the one provided.
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