Consent Calendar
A tool used to expedite meetings of the Board of Directors of The Augustan Society, Inc., and the councils of it's Sub-Groups is the Consent Calendar.
As the Agenda is prepared, items that appear to be unworthy of discussion are gathered into a Consent Calendar, along with the recommended action for each. This will appear in the Agenda directly following Opening Matters, and the Board or Council will vote on all items with a single action.
Before a vote is called, however, the chair must ask if any member objects to any of the proposed actions or has questions they need answered before voting. In such cases, the items in question are withdrawn from the Consent Calendar and added at the end of New Business, to be dealt with at that time.
Requests to pull items from the Consent Calendar do not require a second, and are not debatable. Indeed, while it may be tempting to debate such items immediately, such is not in accordance with Robert’s Rules or Society tradition. That said, the chair may entertain simple and brief questions to expedite the meeting, barring objections from the floor.
Typical items for a Consent Calendar might be:
- Receiving reports from officers, chairmen, and sub-groups;
- Confirming the minutes of the previous meeting;
- Noting or confirming appointments to or removal from offices;
- Electing or promoting Fellows and granting Awards;
- Ratifying actions recommended by one of the Review Committees (Chivalry, Genealogy, Heraldry, or Royalty & Nobility); or the sub-groups (Order of the Augustan Eagle or Noble Company of the Rose) and
- Matters of obvious utility.
It is expected that the officer responsible for composing Agendae will not use the Consent Calendar to “sneak things past” the Board or to discourage debate, as those are not legitimate uses of the process.
Should any member of the Board or Council object to the use of the Consent Calendar, they may pull all items at each meeting. Should this become routine, one would expect the officer responsible for composing the Agendae to discontinue use of a Consent Calendar while such individual remains a member of the Board or Council.
