VI. House Meetings

House Meetings

House Meetings take place every two weeks after dinner on Sundays. They last from 6 pm to about 8 pm, though they may go over, and members are expected to remain.

Quorum

In order for a house meeting to take place, a simple majority of all current residents must be present at the start of the meeting. A simple majority is 51% or more.

For any vote to be considered valid the total number of yeas, nays and abstentions must total the quorum.

If 7 people inform the president at least a day in advance that they cannot make it to the house meeting due to a reasonable conflict, the meeting must be rescheduled.

Conduct and Discussion

People should raise their hands and wait to be called on by the president before speaking.

Meetings are open to all Crammies, both in-house and out-of-house, although only in-house Crammies may vote. There should be ample publicity (e.g. posting a sign and an agenda a week in advance, making an announcement at dinners) so that all interested can attend.

In the case where some action relevant to a particular person is considered, such as an election, discussion should be conducted while the person is out of the room.

An environment should be maintained such that all present feel equally able to express their views. Discrimination based on sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, political affiliation, marital status, or amount of time in residence at the Cramm is specifically outlawed. People are expected to attend the house meetings free of mind- altering substances. Someone who is drinking or drunk during a meeting may be told to leave.

Voting Rules

Most decisions operate on a majority rule where two options are presented. That is, if option A gets more votes than another option B, option B will not be adopted (but people can still search for option C which might get more votes than option A). Straw polls, which are informal "get a feel for what people think" votes may be conducted.

In the particular case of more than two candidates running for the same office, the process of range voting is used. A description of how range voting is conducted can be found online, in Appendix B, or at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting ¹

In the event that a decision is an important one, one can propose that the decision be a "special vote". For a proposal to be passed in a "special vote":

1. Proposal must be cast in the form: "yes" to change to something else, "no" to keep it the same.
2. The proposal must have at least twice as many yea's as nay's plus one.
3. The total number of yea's and nay's must be at least the quorum number.

In order for a proposal to become a special vote, the house must approve of this stipulation prior to the vote, and by a simple majority (more yeses than no's).

Contract changes (including any decision to excuse someone from a contract responsibility) are automatically to be treated as a special vote.

Any questions of procedure that are not addressed here and cannot be solved by discussion should be solved using Roberts’ Rules of Order.

Footnotes

[1] Passed 05/02/2010