CONSTITUTIONAL BY-LAWS CALIFORNIA DRESSAGE SOCIETY

ARTICLE XV - PARLIAMENTARY AUTHORITY Section 1. states:

Robert’s Rules of Order , Revised, shall govern Executive Board and membership meetings when not in conflict with these By-laws.

After reading this section I began to ask myself, who was Robert and what are his Rules of Order and why did he create them. After some research this is what I discovered…

The author, Henry Martyn Robert, was born in 1837 in South Carolina, he was a US Army Brigadier General and held the command of Chief of Engineers.  Henry saw service in the Civil War as well as the Pig War. 

Henry wrote Roberts Rules of Order due to his very poor performance in leading a meeting at the First Baptist Church in New Bedford Massachusetts . The meeting actually disintegrated into physical fighting due to passionate disagreements; so Henry vowed he would not attend another meeting until he learned everything he could about parliamentary procedures for holding assemblies in an orderly manner.

Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberate Assemblies aka Roberts Rules of Order was published in 1876 and is a collection of British Parliamentary Procedures for any assembly or meeting. It provides rules and procedures for any type of meeting from Congress to Community Clubs so decisions can be made efficiently, but with regard to the rights of the minority. It sets the rules on how to run a meeting, defining the roles of officers, as well as how to create and use an agenda. But it also explains how to recognize speakers, allowing them to bring up ideas in a meeting without any conflict. These rules were based after the British Parliament rules of assembly and are loosely based on procedures used by the US House of Representatives.

So whenever you attend a meeting with your local chapter, CDS, USEF or at work thank Henry Robert for his book “Robert’s Rules of Order” so you can participate in a meeting that is run effectively and efficiently and orderly.

Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia; Henry Martyn Robert

dummies.com: Roberts Rules for Dummies Cheat Sheet 

ditctionary.com; Roberts Rules of Order