The book · By David Julian Price CSP

Meeting Procedure Made Easy

AU$35 Printed book · 160 pages · Posted within Australia

The plain-English guide to motions, amendments, points of order and voting. Simple enough to read cover to cover. Handy enough to keep open on the table during the meeting.

Meeting Procedure Made Easy by David Julian Price, book cover

Why this book

The people who understand procedure hold the power

In a formal meeting, the person who knows the rules can steer the outcome. The person who doesn’t, however smart, can end up outmanoeuvred, overruled and wondering what just happened. This book levels the playing field.

Plain English

No legal fog. Every motion and term explained the way you’d explain it to a new committee member.

Built for the table

Look up the answer mid-meeting with the quick reference guide, the “how to achieve what you want” section and a full index.

Works with your rules

Consistent with the major meeting procedure references used in Australia and New Zealand, and designed to sit alongside your own constitution and standing orders.

A must-read chapter

The Railway Line Principle

The agenda is the main line. A motion is the track to your destination. When someone moves an amendment or a procedural motion, the points switch and the meeting moves onto a side track. While you’re on it, that’s the only thing you can talk about. Deal with it, switch back, and carry on.

Grasp this one idea and most of the confusion in formal meetings disappears.

The agendathe main line

The motionthe track to your destination

An amendmenta side track

A procedural motionanother side track

Back on the main line

What’s inside

Your meeting tool box

160 pages, illustrated, and organised so you can find what you need fast.

Getting started

Rules and strategies
The chair: role and responsibilities
Motions, the building blocks of a meeting
Moving and seconding
Substantive and procedural motions

Closing and adjourning

The closure: “That the question be now put”
The previous question
Proceeding to the next business
Laying a matter on the table
Adjourning the debate or the meeting

Managing the meeting

Withdrawing a motion
“That the speaker be no longer heard”
Referring matters to a committee
Dissent from the chair’s ruling
Time limits

Amendments and order

Amendments, and amendments to amendments
Points of order
Right of reply

Voting

Voices, show of hands, ballot and division
Deliberative and casting votes
Proxy votes
Voting by the mover or seconder

The fine print

Constitutions and standing orders
Suspending standing orders
The terminology minefield, from ultra vires to nem con
Quick reference guide and index

Who it’s for

Anyone who sits at a meeting table

Chairs and presiding members

Board directors

Local government councillors

Committee members

Secretaries and governance officers

Associations and clubs

Not-for-profits

Anyone about to take the chair for the first time

About the author

Written by the meetings expert

David Julian Price has spent more than 40 years chairing, advising and training boards, councils, associations and committees. He is an Independent Presiding Member of local government audit committees and has written four books on meetings.

Meeting Procedure Made Easy was first published in 1997 and is now in its sixth edition. Readers keep telling him the same thing: its simplicity is what makes it useful.

40+years working with meetings
4+books on meetings
IPMIndependent Presiding Member, local government audit committees
CSPCertified Speaking Professional

Questions