Promoting Robert’s Rules of Order by a School Young Yu, translated by Lin Zhang

Promoting Robert’s Rules of Order by a

ScHOOL

By Yong Yu As translated by Ms. Lin Zhang

Many people in China are promoting Robert’s Rules of Order. They do so as companies, personal studios, groups, associations, or as individuals. The School of Robert’s Rules of Order (SRRO) is one of these organizations.

The SRRO is a private organization, not registered with the government. It was established in the city of Chengdu, China. Its purpose is introducing and promoting Robert’s Rules of Order to the community. It was founded by a group of enthusiasts who volunteer their spare time to promote Robert’s Rules of Order. The school was started in 2017 by Yong Yu, Lifeng He, Huaping Li, and Chunyan Zhang. Ms. Chunyan Zhang is the current chairman of the school.

in the Beginning

In January 2017, several enthusiasts in Chengdu, China introduced Robert’s Rules of Order to their fellow netizens* of the city at parks or teahouses. Through practicing in the six-step presentation, many friends had shown a keen interest in the study of meeting procedures.

In March 2017, these enthusiasts decided to establish a school to introduce and promote Robert’s Rules of Order to the community, free of charge.

In August 2017, the WeChat public account of the SRRO was officially launched. In February 2018, Mr. Fei He, RP, from the Chinese Association of Parliamentarians (CAP) became the director of the Examination and Academic Committee of the School to support the SRRO.

In April 2018, the sponsors of the school held a meeting and passed the bylaws of the SRRO.

According to the bylaws, the SRRO sets up a board of directors and three committees: The Examinations and Academic Committee, the Volunteer and Promotion Committee, and the Legal and Audit Committee. The bylaws also include provisions for the membership, the general assembly, and the director meetings.

In May 2018, the SRRO completed the first official election. The first chairman was Mr. Yong Yu, the secretary was Mr. Lifeng He. It also confirmed the chairmen of the committees, completed the invitation of SRRO members, and added director Mr. Fan Yang.

In the same month, the duty of each team member was clarified. One person is responsible for the public relations and the recruitment of interested people. Three groups organize enthusiasts to study and practice. At the same time, director Fei

He, RP, chairman Wanchun Sun, RP, and secretary Hui Xie from CAP have joined us and provide guidance.

The SRRO formed five member groups over the time. They are the Planning Class, the Lecturer Group, the Freedom Class, the WeChat public account, and the Seeding Base. These groups work independently and support each other. They operate within the boundary of the national laws and in accordance with Robert’s Rules of Order.

In September 2018, the first general meeting of the SRRO was held; In October 2019, the second general meeting of SRRO was held.

Form of Learning

The SRRO initially used on-site mock meetings to learn (i.e., holding mock meetings while looking up rules in books and having discussions). Online mock meetings were used later because they are less costly, more convenient, and have no geographical constraint. This gradually became the main way to carry out the learning activities in the SRRO.

Students usually can master the basic skills of hosting meetings after eight to ten mock meetings. When a class counselor believes that a student has achieved a certain level of the skills in presiding over meetings, he or she will recommend the primary level test of meeting host by the SRRO.

Promotional Methods

We initially used the opportunity of social gatherings to promote the SRRO by introducing Robert’s Rules of Order and meeting rules to friends, then immediately starting a mock meeting. The mock meetings intentionally created some digressing topics, questioning motivation, personal attacks, and other meeting obstacles to make participants solve the obstacles, hence stimulating their interest in further exercises. With the help of netizens spreading the word, more and more people participated in the activities, and some of them became students of the SRRO.

The volunteer promotion committee later produced an on-line questionnaire introducing the characteristics of the three study groups of the SRRO to netizens. The SRRO found some interested people to be invited to join the study, based on the responses.

In addition to the above methods, the SRRO also utilizes promotional articles to attract interested people. They are primarily blogs by the SRRO students sharing their experiences of learning and using Robert’s Rules of Order. These blogs are published with the WeChat public account, leading more people to understand Robert’s Rules of Order, and to participate in its study.

The results of Promotion

As of March 2020, seventy-five students have passed the Primary Level Test of the SRRO, seventeen of whom became members of the NAP. Three of them have been certified as RP by the National Association of Parliamentarians.

The graduates of the SRRO are from twenty-five provinces in China, accounting for 74% of the country’s thirty four provinces, with the most (eleven) in Hebei Province, followed by eight in Sichuan Province, six in Henan Province, five in Zhejiang Province and Beijing, each, four in Hubei, Guangdong, and Shandong

Provinces each, three in Hunan, Jiangsu and Jiangxi Provinces each, and the rest in other provinces.

The graduates’ academic credentials include doctorate, master’s, bachelor’s, secondary school, and primary school education. This diversity reflects that the subject of how to deliberate is based on human nature, its basic knowledge is not difficult to comprehend, and one does not need higher education.

Among the occupations of the seventy-five graduates are doctoral adviser, lawyer, architect, freelancer, journalist, teacher, business owner, taxi driver, truck driver, factory worker, salesperson, business executive, and event planner. Their careers are different, but they are all attracted by Robert’s Rules of Order. This shows that its contents are highly public and practical, reflecting the refined collective wisdom of hundreds of years of the deliberators.†

According to the twenty-five responses of the student survey, the oldest is fifty-six years old and the youngest is twenty-nine. Twenty-one people are older than thirty-five (84%), and 16% are younger than thirty-five. This profile may indicate that people older than thirty-five bear more social responsibilities, and have more tasks of communication and coordination. As a deliberation tool, Robert’s Rules of Order essentially solves the problems in these tasks, so people over thirty-five need it more than others.

During the process of promoting Robert’s Rules of Order, we learned that many netizens did not show up, or stick to the stage of the “junior host” test, however, they utilized whatever knowledge they obtained from our promotion and study activities to help some aspects of their lives such as community building, company operations, family life, and so on. It is worth noting as an example, one member of the SRRO began using Robert’s Rules of Order to deal with some matters in her family. Her daughter was four years old then. We saw the child again at an event recently. The six-year-old girl could communicate with adults calmly and confidently, and express herself clearly.

reflection on Promoting Robert’s Rules of Order

A person is bound to enter society after growing from a juvenile to an adult in a family. It is very beneficial to individuals, families, and the society, if the concept of equality and rights, and the ways and means of the achieving them, can become a part of instinct through meeting exercises with Robert’s Rules of Order.

It is very encouraging and a great pleasure to hear positive feedback from adults who had no knowledge of Robert’s Rules of Order before, but have benefited from learning it. The SRRO offers free learning; the volunteers are rewarded with the joy and sense of fulfilment. Therefore, the SRRO can keep attracting people to join it for learning and practicing Robert’s Rules of Order together.

Life can be changed. Change can start with learning Robert’s Rules of Order!

335 years from 1275 when British civilian representatives entered the National Assembly to 1610 when the rules of order appeared, 601 years to the publication of the first edition of Robert’s Rules of Order in 1876, 745 years to the 12th edition of Robert Rules of Order in 2020.