Community Council Procedures and Guidelines

Community Council operates by a very specific set of procedures and guidelines. This page should help guide new members, visitors, and members of the Hampshire Community through the process of understanding how a meeting works, to It is the responsibility of the Council as a whole and the Council Chairperson in particular to be proactive within the community to be at the forefront, setting the agenda of the community, and not simply reacting to matters which have already passed out of your control. Most importantly, being an elected official you are a representative of Community Council at all times. This means that you must act as a member at all times, following the Hampshire College Constitution, and Community Council Bylaws, and Community Council Operating Procedures.

= Agenda =

The agenda states what business will be discussed at each meeting. The Secretary of Community Council should set a day by which all items for the coming meeting must be submitted and make sure all the members are aware of said date. The agenda for the meeting is then closed at the Community Council Executive Cabinet meeting beforehand, so that is can be prepared, approved, and sent out to everyone on the Community Council listserv before the next Council meeting.

Members who submit motions for the agenda should provide a printed and electronic copy to the Secretary so that the motions may be distributed with the agenda and online, and can be updated if the motion is adopted.

Motions or topics of discussion which are not taken up at the meeting for they have been slated are forwarded to the agenda of the next regular meeting as old buisness.

Layout of the Agenda

 * Heading: "Community Council" or the appropiate standing Committee (ex. COCA, COCD, FiCom, SafeCom)
 * The type of document: "Agenda".
 * The type of meeting: "Weekly Community Council Meeting
 * The date, the full time of the meetings, and where the meeting will be held
 * Approval of the previous meetings minutes
 * Approval of the current agenda
 * Reportbacks: The Standing Commitees as well as any task forces that should have met since the last Community Council Meeting
 * Special Guest(s): "Speaker from the Administration" or "Concerned Student"
 * Old Business Section
 * New Business

Note: Each Council has a slightly different way of doing things, and may have a slightly different format for its meetings and for the agenda.

Sample Agenda
Community Council

Agenda - Weekly Community Council Meeting

November 10th, 2009; 3:30-5:00 PM; Community Council Office '''II. Approval of Minutes'''

'''III. Approval of Agenda'''

'''IV. Report Backs'''

a. Committee on Community Activities (COCA)

b. Committee on Community Development (COCD)

c. Financial Committee (FiCom)

d. Public Health and Safety Committee (SafeCom)

e. Student of Under Represented Cultures and Ethnicities (SOURCE)

f. Hampshire College’s Governance Taskforce

g. Elections Taskforce

Guest Josh Landes

V. Officer Meeting

1. Office supplies (DeeDee) 2. Five College Student Coordinating Board (Ben) 3. Council Cares Weekly (Catharine) 4. Feedback Forum (Ella)

'''VI. Old Business''' a. All Community Meeting Preparation (Emily)

b. FiCom Amendment to Bylaws (FiCom Rep)

c. Officer Stipends (Council)

d. Spring 2009 Misuse of SAF (EC/Community/COCA)

e. Bi Weekly meeting (Ella)

'''VII. New Business'''

a. Student Representative Proposal (Ella) b. Council Dinner (Catharine) c. Giveaways and Goodies (DeeDee)

'''VIII. Open Forum '''

= Knowing the Community Council 'Minutes' Policy =

Unlike the agenda, which indicates what will be, the minutes indicate what was. Typically at meetings the secretary takes the minutes, although the Community Council Operating Procedures do outline an order of responsibilities if any officers are not present. The minutes are at worst and impartial narrative, and at best are a full picture of what occurred during the meeting. They can and do include:


 * The Date, time, and place of the meeting
 * The type of meeting (ex. regular, emergency, special)
 * The names of all members present
 * All Motions
 * Seconds to Motions
 * Blocks to Motions
 * The resolution of Motions. Including the Vote Count in an up/down vote situation. (Yes, No, and Abstentions)
 * All Points of order
 * Points of Contention (especially when approving previous minutes)
 * All appeals
 * The time the meeting was officially adjourned.
 * The Secretary's signature on the approved copy.

Typically minutes are sent out at the end of a meeting (after grammatical and spelling errors are adjusted). The Council has the week to look over the minutes and make sure all members of Council are properly represented. After a meeting called to order the previous minutes are typically approved.

Minutes are currently taken at all Community Council Meetings (excluding the beginning and end of the year dinners), FiCom Meetings, COCA meetings, and more liberally at SafeCom meetings. In the future there may be an attempt at standardization but for right now it is at the discretion of the Officers of each committee.

All minutes that have been approved are to be kept on file to be archived at the end of the semester or after any change in officership. The documents are to be archived after printing at duplications in the Hampshire College Library.

&lt;br&gt; An example of minutes could look as follows:

Sample Minutes
Examples of Community Council Minutes can be found at the page Community Council Minutes. The minutes of the Community Council are the permanent record that an action has been taken. They should be clear and descriptive enough so that anyone who might read them will be able to understand the decisions made. They are to be posted on Hampedia once they are approved to help with transparency to the greater Hampshire College community.

Since the accuracy of the minutes is so important, completed minutes must be distributed to the membership as soon as possible after a meeting so that peopl will be able to consider them while their recollection of the meeting is clear.

THE MINUTES ARE NOT FINAL AND MUST BE VOTED ON BY COUNCIL. They shall be disputed if any discrepancies arise amongst all the members of the Council. They are not to be archived or distributed to the public in anyway until AFTER they have been approved by Community Council.

= Task Forces =

When a concern arises in Community Council that is best dealt with by a small group of people, including members of Community Council, as well as members of the Hampshire Community at large a task force is typically created. Students, Staff, Faculty, etc, can serve, as well as anyone affected by the topic at hand. Task forces are usually established to research, discuss, and ultimately report back on the issues at hand. The task force recommendations are not decisive (unless so motioned and approved in Community Council) but instead are suggestions that are brought back to Community Council, often for eventual voting. The task force when motioned for and created is assigned a temporary chair to arrange the first meeting of the Task Force. At the first meeting the task force can decide whether to allow the temporary chair to remain the chair of the Task Force until it is dissolved or on the contrary can choose to elect a different chair as the body that plans to serve on the Task Force till it is dissolved.

To form a Task Force, it first must be motioned for in Community Council, typically after a discrepancy arises. A simple majority vote creates the Force. Then a temporary chair is elected or appointed (depending on the wishes of the current Community Council). Certain things are to be made explicit in the creation of any task force:


 * What specific questions the task force is to address
 * The time frame within which they must complete their research, and to what date Community Council can logically suggest a presentation by the task force.
 * The Temporary Chair

In addition, other governance bodies and administrative offices should be informed of the formation of task forces. A call for membership should be released to the Hampshire Community if the Task of the Task force, or any of the consequent questions it must answer are of any concern to the community at large. Information on the task force meetings should be made available through both the intranet and perhaps signs if so deemed necessary.

At the end of any task force, or at any point during which it is deemed appropriate, the task force is to present to Community Council what information they have come across and in turn what recommendations they propose. Usually the chair of the committee will type up a specific packet of information including but not limited too, "Background on the problem," "When the Task Force Was Created." "Purpose(s) of the Task Force." "Recommendations of the Task Force." "Any Further work that may be necessary." Also if there is any part of the Task Force that is limited by time constraints it should be so noted in the presentation.

Example of a Task Force Presentation - Please note it is typically MUCH more extensive then this, and the timeline would include all the dates of the meeting and what was generally discussed at each meeting.

Task Force: Bylaws Task Force When: Fall of 2008 Members: Leanna Pohevitz, Alex Torpey, Sam Light, Emily Ryan, Wes Ringel, Dylan Holmes Background: Typically with each new Community Council the Bylaws have been a point of contention. For that reason, this task force was called into committee to fully edit the bylaws both for grammatical and spelling errors as well as for logistical and ideological constraints. Purpose: The purpose of this Task Force is to revise the Community Council Bylaws to strengthen the processes that run Community Council as a governance body. Timeline:

September 12th 2008:.... September 20th 2008:.... October 28th 2008:.... Task Force adjourns to make recommendations to Community Council

Recommendations: Vote for the Community Council Officers within Community Council as they are the officers of Council and not officers of the Student body.

= Focus Groups =

A focus group is very similar to a Task Force in that it deals with jobs that are much more specified than those that Community Council must deal with. While that is true, Task Force's are usually used for recommendations where focus groups are used to complete an important short term job. the job usually requires time, energy, and devotion. Again, similar to a Task Force, a Focus Group is to be comprised of Council Members, Students, Staff, Faculty, etc. Also they are to be opened up to the community at large through the mechanisms in which Task Forces are promoted such as through

The job is an opportunity for people who might not otherwise be involved in Community Council to devote themselves to helping with an event of community governance issues, or to participate in projects for a relatively short duration of time, usually lasting only one to three weeks. The Focus Group has specific goals and objectives which are doable.

A Focus Group is to be created in the same way a Task Force is, through a motion in Community Council and a simple majority vote. Again a temporary chair will be chosen, and they can serve as the de facto arbiter of affairs or a new chair can be elected to serve for the duration of the Focus Group.

The Focus Group will be added to the report-backs section of the agenda in Community Council and will be discussed within the minutes. The Focus Group should make a similar presentation to Community Council after its commencement to that to be made by Task Forces but this will not include recommendations and instead will be a discussion of what has been done.

= Parlimentary Procedure =

Community Council uses Robert's Rules of Order, newly revised, as parlimentary procedure. Where the bylaws or legislation of Community Council conflicts with Robert's Rules, the bylawys or legislation takes precendence.

Important Rules and Principles

 * The fundamental right of deliberative assemblies require all questions to be thoroughly discussed before taking action
 * Obtain the right to speak by raising your hand and waiting your turn to be recognized by the Community Council Facilitator
 * No member can speak twice to the same issue until everyone else wishing to speak has spoken to it once
 * Be respectful and don't stoop to personal attacks

= Resolutions =

Students, Faculty, Staff and Council members may all submit motions to be discussed at Community Council meetings.

How to propose a resolution to be voted upon by Council
Submit the resolution to the Community Council Secretary, preferably in electronic form. The secretary will then add the resolution to the agenda for the upcoming meeting, and will print off hard copies of the resolution for all members of Community Council. Anyone who submits a proposal to the agenda should plan on coming to present the resolution in person during the next Community Council meeting.

How resolutions are passed
Once a motion comes before Council, it comes to a vote when one member "motions to approve a resolution," and another member "seconds." Council unofficially operates with a "vote of no confidence" rule. This means if a resolution is proposed and seconded and receives no blocks, it automatically passes without an up-down vote, for the sake of efficiency. Blocking opens up the floor for members to discuss the proposal. Once it is felt that all members have had a chance to fully discuss the motion, an up-down vote is proposed. The resolution passes if it receives half the votes plus one of the members present in the room and the proxy votes of members not present.

Amendments
While the main motion is being discussed, any member can propose an amendment. Amendments may either be "friendly" or not. Friendly amendments are those which are agreed to by the person who has brought the motion forth and are in turn considered part of the main motion at once. Non-friendly amendments must be seconded and if seconded, discussed by the membership. While an amendment is pending, it is the only question which should be discussed. Further discussion on the main motion will continue ONLY after a vote has been taken on the amendment.

Special Circumstances
Most votes in Community Council are taken by a show of hands but any votes such as elections for officers or other personal matters are taken by secret ballot. Members may make a superseding motion to have any vote taken in a way other than a show of hands.

Resolutions which would entail amending the Community Council Bylaws, and/or amending the standing committees' constitutions require a 2/3 vote of the members present in the room plus the proxy votes of absent members.