Michigan 4-H Volunteer Webinar Series: 4-H Volunteers’ Guide to Parliamentary Procedure

September 19, 2024

Learn the essentials of parliamentary procedure to effectively manage meetings, ensure fair decision-making, and empower youth leaders. This video covers the fundamentals of motions, voting, and meeting protocols, providing you with the tools to support the youth in your group so they lead with confidence and clarity. Enhance your skills, foster order, and create a productive environment for your 4-H club.

Video Transcript

All right. I would like to welcome everyone to the first of the fall topics for the Michigan Four H Volunteer Webinar Series. We're going to be looking at F H Volunteers Guide to Parliamentary Procedure. I'm Christine Havery. I use the pronoun S Her Hers. I'm an extension educator in the co lead for Extensions Volunteer Management. I'm based in the Clinton County Office. And our lead presenter today is Janelle Stewar I'll let her do a quick introduction. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Chanel Stewart, and I am an extension educator in the four H youth development area in Lenoi County. I have a unique role of I get to great honor of working with all of the volunteers locally in Loy County, as well as the youth, as I oversee the program coordination aspect of the job. And then statewide, I spend 50% of my time doing leadership civic cultural engagement programming around the state. So I will say, I love teaching parliamentary procedure. I am not a parliamentarian, but I do love the benefits and the aspect of running fair effective efficient meetings, we will get a lot of knowledge and ideas for each of you to use within your for each experiences over the next little bit of time. So MSU Extension fully believes in the principles of diversity equity inclusion. We know that human differences enrich our lives work in community. We embrace our responsibility to be a resource for all and are committed to providing programs to all segments of the community. It is also important to understand the long standing history and legacy of colonialism that has brought us to reside in the land and seek an understanding our place with that history, and the land acknowledgment on the screen is one step in the process. So, this has been part of a series of webinars that we have done over the last basically two years now. There are three other topics coming up this fall that you can see the information on the screen that will be offered for volunteers. We are already in the talks of what some of the 2025 topics will be. They will be. All of the registration and recordings are on the link that has just been placed in the chat. So check that out to see what other resources are available for you as a volunteer. So one of the things we really look at is that in Four, we get the great opportunity to work with youth in many non formal settings. These spaces can provide youth a place to belong, matter, and explore their personal spark. The relationship youth have with each of you as a four volunteer, helps with their skill development, engagement, and belonging that make a four H program impactful. As we look at how this relates to parliamentary procedure, is it allows our meetings to be more efficient and effective and helps with that youth voice piece by giving them a role in running those meetings. And that's all about helping to build that spark that belonging in that relationship and that engagement, which is a huge part of the Four H thrive model. And sparks are those internal strengths and someone that are good, useful, and provide purpose in life. In some cases, you want to share their sparks with others. It's just a chance to demonstrate, present those skills to others. Helping youth prepare and show those sparks helps them grow and doesn't diminish. For eage groups are a great place for youth to shine, and the usage of parliamentary procedure brings order to the meetings and can help more you get engaged and more you share their voice during the meetings and learn that they might have a spark in leading meetings and engagement and could help them grow into something that could turn into career as Jane will probably share. All right. So I'm gonna kick in here. So we just want to show this club wheel here for a real quick minute, because obvious basically when you're talking about parliamentary procedure, we are talking about an official meeting aspect or an official what do you want committee meeting even. But basically, parliamentary procedure comes into play when you are officially trying to have a effective efficient and engaging meeting, I call them. And so this club wheel is a popular wheel and four H, that will give you some resources that you'll be able to have and learn more about this as we go through this. But basically, what we would call in FH a good meeting would be where we would have some fun. We would also do some business, and we would also have learning because that's where the roots of our Four organization comes through is the educational aspect of youth learning that. This breaks it out a little bit, and we'll talk about how long you can spend. And if you're spending more than what we call 20, 25 minutes in the business aspect where parliamentary procedure really truly comes into play. Lis we can talk about how we can get more fun and learning into every single one of your meetings. And so the aspect of parliamentary procedure will come along in what we call the business portion of our meetings and the club wheel and that. So But going to talk about real quick the fun aspect of every single meeting because that's what we know in building relationships and engagement with young people is about having fun with them as well as offering fun into the learning opportunity, as well as the meetings. So We're going to do this virtually, we're going to do what we call a waterfall demonstration here. I want everyone to go down to their chat area. So if you can pull up the chat and make sure that it says to everyone. I don't want you to hit er. What I want you to type in the chat again, is, well, I'm going to have you answer one of two questions. We've already got your name and your county that you're from. So you can choose to answer either one of these questions or both, don't want to spend a lot of time doing it, but why do you like using parliamentary procedure? Or you can answer, I find parliamentary procedure scary because. So you can answer one or two of them. But why do you like using parliamentary procedure and that or you find parliamentary procedure scary. Don't hit the inner button. Just type your answer in there. And then we're going to do a waterfall where I'm going to say go and everyone will hit go at the same time. But why you like using parliamentary procedure or I find parliamentary procedure scary because. All right. I'm going to count you down and when I count you down, you're going to hit your inner button, and they're all going to populate the chat simultaneously. Three, two, one, go. It always makes me dizzy. I can't see them and read them all at the same time, but it is fun to see these come in as well as a reason to do this if you're ever online with young people, is it allows them to use their thought process without being intimidated or going off as someone else's gives them a truly a chance to use their voice and their purest sets. So yes, I've see a couple of them. It keeps order to meetings. It keeps meetings organized. Makes them run more smoothly and can get stuff done faster. Absolutely. You like the order. It's a fair way to run a meeting. Absolutely. That's why I love to call it fair effective and efficient and engaging. Help keeps meetings on track, structure, and no process. Keeps discussion at track. Yeah, perfect. I'm scary because it's something I haven't used since I was a four H. Yeah. Absolutely. As adults, we have to be vulnerable in order to try and bring something in or teach something, we're often put in that situation that we're not 100% comfortable with. So hopefully today, you'll leave here with some resources and a little bit more comfort level to know that there is there support and structure that you can have. But most importantly, I like you to realize is there is no parliamentary police. Nobody's going to come into your meeting and say, you did this wrong, you're fired. You are no longer a volunteer because you did not use parliamentary procedure the correct way. That is not going to happen. I'm also going to tell you as much as I like parliamentary procedure, you also don't have to do it. There are many different ways to make decisions. But we do feel that parliamentary procedure is a great learning tool, and it's also a tool that young people will use way into their life. As Chris said, one of the things for me is my story is first job out of college I had. It was a social worker position because I have that background and that degree. I got a job to be a case manager at an organization doing social work because I was in four H, and my boss said I would know how to run meetings in groups because I knew parliamentary procedure. I was like, How do you know I club ran it? She's like, Well, she was a very old school and said, all clubs ran it. I did. I didn't know it. But I also realize now as an adult that most groups, clubs, organizations that I belong to that have formal meetings of any sort uses some sort of parliamentary procedure. This is a skill set that we are setting our young people up for being successful as adults. So absolutely going along with that thrive model. Hopefully, for some of them, it's a little bit of a spark and they can see themselves with it. So So thank you for doing this fun things, and we will definitely hopefully ease some of those scary parts, but also continue to learn because the c or the wheel, again, as we're going to demonstrate today, hopefully, is that now we're going to talk about the educational piece of it. So, um As we started the purpose of parliamentary procedure is to provide a system of allows for order in meetings. It also assures that meetings are effective, fair, and efficient. And as I said, there's no parliamentary police. We want you to do the best. We want you to keep order and we want to make sure that all young people have a voice in all of your meetings, and so parliamentary procedure is a way that they can do it. So as we go through today, Chris is going to drop some Resources in that will be hopefully useful for you as you move forward. She'll also be e mailing these out afterwards. Please don't feel that you have to jump on and look at these. Just know that you will have them, but there are many resources that we'll be sharing today and various different forms in that. So So we are going to talk about the purpose of parliamentary procedure. And just by giving a thumbs up, I know it's not great for a recording. But how many of you guys feel that you are really efficient with parliamentary procedure? Give me a thumbs up. If you feel like I'm pretty good at it, I just want new tools, do a side. And if you feel like I am not good it at all, I really truly need a lot of help. Give me a thumbs down in that. So see where we're at with everyone. So I see some thumbs up. Yes, you can use either your own hands or you can use the features on Zoom. But I'm seeing thumbs up, some down. Some of you are going sideways. Awesome thumbs up again. All right. Well, hopefully, you'll find some additional tools that you will be able to use today for all of our thumbs ups and the middles, again, more and thumbs down. No, you're not alone in this world of that. So So, first and most importantly, when use on parliamentary procedure, it is important that we do have some of the tools that makes a meeting successful. And believe it or not, a gavel is one of those tools. If you don't have or have not engaged in purchasing a gavel for your four H clubs, it's important to consider having it, you can use other things, but a gavel is a nice small gift to have on hand as part of your tools. Also setting your young people up in the club, as well as your officers to know what the gavel means, can also make the meaning more efficient because then you wouldn't have to say some of the things. Here's a chart, which the gavel means, what the meanings of the gavel are. When you hear a tap once, it follows the announcement or the adjournment of anything. When officer would say a motion passes, they hit the gavel once. It shows emphasis, It emphasizes something action has taken. Also, it's a completion of business. In the beginning of the meeting, a one gavel tap after the group has stood up means to return to their seats or the sit down. When a person is calling a meeting in order, they would use their gavel to hit the table twice with it. We when they call, I call this meeting in order and they're followed by two wraps on the table. Then if they say, we are going to do the pledges at this point, if they hit their gavel three times, that should order for everyone to stand up. So, there are different meanings based on how many taps. The one, the very bottom one, the series of rapid taps is something that we hope we don't have to use, but I have seen it used, and that is that you're trying to restore order into a club meeting or a group meeting. And so you're repeatedly hitting your gavel. So we hope that doesn't happen many times in any of our club meetings, but if it does, that's the meaning of that. So in your hand, when you receive this, I'm going to have this as a one page slide for you that you could laminate and give to your officers or have hung up at your club meeting. If you implement parliamentary procedure, they have that visual of what these would be. Thanks, Chris. The basis of parliamentary procedure and the concepts around it is about making motions. When we teach parliamentary procedures, we are using the current edition of what we call Roberts rule of order. That is the book. Robert's my friend. I always say, when I do this, we are using Roberts rule of order, the current edition. Always state that because then you're trying to use resources that are mo current. Robert says, you'll hear me say, that when using parliamentary procedure, it is around the basic concept of making motions. There are five steps of making a motion. If you can drop in the chat box, any of the steps that you know that are part of making a motion. If you know all five, great. If you know just a couple of them or if you just know one, just drop them in. This is not a waterfall. Go ahead and enter at any point that you have and put them in there. Ask you for a motion on the floor, saying a motion and sucking in it. There you go. You've got two of them there B. Absolutely. The ones that you think of. A second support. We're going to talk about support there. I move. Cynthia great verbiage there. Motion discussion vote. Absolutely. The five steps are first and foremost. Yeah, roll call for vote completion. That's a type of voting. Yes, and we will talk about different types of voting today. First and foremost, when using Robert's rule of order or parliamentary procedure, a person must be recognized first. And so that is the first step of an official motion is that the individual has been recognized. Once the individual has been recognized, they would state the motion. And stating that motion, as someone put up there, is awesome, is that you are saying I move that we. What we hear many times is someone says, I make a motion to buy pizza at our next four H club meeting. The correct verbiage is I move that we buy pizza at our next four H club meeting. The reasoning behind that based on Robert is the fact that in True Robert's rule of order, you should not be discussing anything until a motion has been made. In most lands of using boards and clubs and things like that. We discuss everything until we're blue in the face, and then someone makes a motion, and that becomes a formal. I'm not going to tell you the switch or change anything of that nature. I just want you to know the difference truly of Robert's rule of order says that you make a motion first, and then you discuss it. So the concept of using a reach, I move that we is about moving the idea in your brain out to everyone else. So that is where Robert came up with that many years ago. I move, and we're moving that thought of yours out of your brain into the larger assembly to here. That is why that's the proper verbiage is that I move versus I make a motion. After the president receives that motion, the next step, which is technically the third, is someone must second that motion. We are asking in Robert's land that you say I second the motion set up versus support, and we here support a lot of times. But the reason why you second a motion is because a second means you are moving that motion to discussion. It does not mean you support it. You may support it. But again, when using proper verbiage, Robert's rule of order says you second the motion so that you can move it to discussion. I'm a second a motion that Christine made regarding buying pizza pepperoni pizza at the next four H club meeting, and I want to go to discussion because I want to add bacon to it, or I want to add mushrooms to it. I'm going to get it to a discussion so I can add to her motion. If you do not get a second, then the motion is never discussed at that point. So Step one, be recognized. Step two, state to motion, step three, second the motion. Step four is the ultimate opportunity for everyone to use their voice and discuss that motion. That is where it comes for everyone has equal rights equal say and the ability to have a voice and this is by discussing the motion. Last but not least, you must have a vote. And all motions require a certain percentage to pass. And so when you come to the vote, most motions will require what we call a majority. There are certain motions that require different amounts to have such as two thirds, is your other most famous one, but most motions require a majority, which to remind everyone is one over half. So a simple majority is basically one over half of the members voting. In this case scenario here, if there's ten members, it requires six people to be a majority. One of the questions I often will ask people. I I'll throw it in here, you can answer it in a chat. If you have ten people in the room, and it's five in favor and five against, as president, what do you call that at that point? Is that a pass? Is it a fail? Or does the President get to do something different? I you want to throw that in your chat, your thought, that would be great. Again, you have ten people voting. Five people want the motion, five people don't want it. I see looking for Cf for more. President breaks the tie. So the proper thing would be there's two options here. One, it's not a majority. So technically, the motion fails because it requires a majority, which is one over half. Again, for Hn, do you want to send it back for discussion? Do you want to do some other things? You absolutely can. The other thing about a president breaking a tie is as long as they did not vote originally. If your rules of your club says that a president makes or breaks a tie, Then the president can vote. If the president votes on the original motion, they do not have any more power than anybody else as a member of that group, so they don't get the vote the second time. So if your president voted as part of the ten members of the group, they do not break the tie and the motion would fail because there was not a majority. If the president did not vote, and technically there's 11 people in the room, and it says your president makes or breaks ties, then they would vote, and they would break that tie. So Question, are all officers included in the vote? Yes, they are. A officer is considered a member of the group and they have no reason that they can't vote on every single motion. But a president is the one that has the ultimate different level, but only if they not vote in the original vote. So So looking at different methods of voting. Talk about it here. First and foremost, one that we use and most often is what we call a voice vote. A voice vote is something that we would want to use when we don't need to have an exact number of recalls. All in favor of approving the Secretary's report, signify by saying I, everyone would then answer I. And then you must offer the opposite. All of those opposed to the Secretary's report as read. You'll hear officers say either signify by saying I or signify by saying A. Either one is right, doesn't matter. Most say that they would have an opposition vote, so you would use A, but you can use however you want and that sets. A voice vote in recording a voice vote, you would just say the motion passed. You don't have to record the number. Showing of hands is another way a method of voting. This is at this point is you're going to ask everyone in favor of ordering pizza for our next four H club meeting, raise their right hand, and then you would vote by raising your right hand. After you count the votes, you would have asked them to put their hands down, and you would say, all opposed of ordering pizza for the next four H club meeting, raise your right hand. Then you would count the opposition and record the opposition. Another way to throw in a different style of voting, and I will tell you why we do these different ones is by standing. All in favor of having pop at the next four H meeting. Look at me. I can't do anything healthy over lunchtime right now, it's all going to be the bad stuff. But all of you in favor of having pop at our next four H meeting, please stand up. Everyone stands, sit down, and then have the opposition stand. Those are things. The reason why you want to make sure and look at mixing up your voting is because what we know about young people, and I will just say people in general is that keeping them engaged in the meeting requires movement. I have asked this repeatedly when I do this training with you. How many of you guys have ever voted on something that you have no clue what you voted on just because you had disengaged because you were bored, and everyone does that. I do that as an adult. I'll sit there and go, wow, what am I voting on 'cause I just totally lost what your conversation was. So why having different types of voting methods, it brings them in, and they don't become what we call like an automatic or N. If they have to raise their hand, if they have to stand up, they engage in a different way that brings them into the meeting in a more engaging concept. So, don't be afraid to mix it up is what I'm basic concept with that. So A roll call vote. It's a great opportunity to teach young people that a roll call vote is about when we are when we use the person's name by asking them what they want. Lessons there is that asking young people when and where they see or they know that a roll call vote occurs. Opportunity to talk about civic engagement and how our governmental process uses roll call vote, and the basis of roll call vote is anytime you are elected to represent other people. So that way, other people have the opportunity to know how you voted. In four H land, don't usually do roll call votes very often, but it can be a fun way to do things. I often encourage roll call votes not to be a controversial thing because of the peer pressure that we put on young people, but it can be a fun way to do other things to engage. At anytime if you feel that your club or your group is having a controversial decision or the outside pressures on the young people may be great from adults or other youth in the room. Don't be afraid to use the secret ballot. And that is that they would write down on the ballot what their vote is. They are in favor of the motion, or they oppose the motion. And at that point, then collect the ballots and would be counted and then would be announced. I encourage when counting those ballots that it would be more than one person doing that just for the transparency of that. I also encourage secret ballots for any time that you are electing officers, and we will talk about that in a little bit regarding electing officers, a brief overview on that. But it is we want young people to vote and pick people to run and represent them based on doing a good job, not their friends. We see enough of that, and they're more apt to not vote for their friends if it's a secret ballot than it is if they publicly have to vote for their friends or their peers. So So Let me just look back real quick before I go and see if I can answer. Is it new that the presidents can vote during meetings? It depends on your committee and it depends on your rules. So it is not a definite that says presidents can't vote. If your rules allow for the president to vote, then they can vote. But again, they cannot have a second vote. Most people follow what they say, and that is that it's a clear way to have someone break a tie, so they don't usually have their president vote. So when the motion changes during the conversation, how do you clarify what they are voting on? I will get to that one in a real quick moment when we talk about amendments. So Renee, thank you for that question and make sure we will get that with amendments. So I'm not going to do this one right now, and at the end, maybe we'll have a minute because it does require you to unmute and talk. So we'll save that possibly for when we're not recording. Is that a good idea, Chris? So this is called Parliament Pro Trail snack mix. This is an opportunity where you will practice using parliamentary procedure and you build a trail mix. I do have the resources to send. I do not have it on a link, but I will send it. Oh, I do. Opportunities on ways to teach parliamentary procedure, fun activity. The cool thing about Pare Pro trail mix is that you end up with a snack at the very end. And the concept behind it is that you are making motions to put items into the snack, the trail mix. So we'll look at that in a little bit at the end. I'll make it a little bit easier for the recording, but it is a very cool activity if you've never done it, and I'll demonstrate that. So The next layer of getting heavier involved in parliamentary procedure, which is an awesome tool to teach young people, especially if young people are in a discussion with adults is what we call the question. I'll call the question is used by any member of the group when they are ready to move the group to a vote. This motion then is made it is a motion, so it is made in a form of motion and it must be seconded. So I call the question, we talk about the fact that you can't have multiple motions on the floor. You can only have one main motion on the floor. A call the question is a subsidiary motion, so it can be added onto what we call the main motion. So what we're asking for and call the question is you are tired of discussing everything and you want this discussion to be over. And so the young people are going to say, I move to call the question. What that happens at that point, it does require a second. The president must stop all conversations at that very minute, and you immediately proceed to vote to stop conversation. That's basically what call the question is. It does require a two thirds majority to pass. And then if it does pass, you immediately go into the vote of the main motion. I know sometimes this gets a little bit confusing when young people use this, you will often see it if we've come to one of our trainings, and we teach it that because they will say, we're tired of discussing things until no end, so we like to get it moving, so they will move to call the question. It's just a fun thing to see young people do that because we know as a whole, they do move through processing things often a little bit more faster than we do as we are bringing in our history and our knowledge and all of that that sometimes either clouds us or actually helps in the long run. But just a factual thing of knowing that if you ever have someone who calls the question, What they're asking the group to do is to stop discussion. But the group has a right to say, yes, they do or don't want to stop the discussion. Call the question can be used in a form of abuse of power too. I have seen this with a group of adults where someone made a controversial motion. They seconded it. It went to discussion, and the first second person that raised their hand said, I moved to call the question because they wanted no discussion to occur. That is why the group ultimately has the right to say it failed, so they continue on to their discussion. So So call a question, just a little bit next level of things. So amendments. So we will get to this topic here. So when you have a main motion, so Chris has made a motion to have pepperoni pizza at the next four H club meeting. It's been seconded, 'cause I seconded it because I want to have the pizza. I want more than pepperoni. So in the discussion phase, as a member, you have a right to amend the motion. And by amending the motion, you would say, I move to amend the motion by adding pepperoni, adding mushrooms. So now I want to add mushrooms to the pizza. That does require a second. And then now you're going to go in and you're going to discuss the amendment. So the question is, how do you keep that all straight? How do you know what you're voting on and all that? I like to teach the fact that when you go to an amendment, you leave the original motion alone. So we have motioned to have pepperoni pizza. I have amended it by saying adding mushrooms. In leading the discussion on the amendment, I don't want to discuss pepperoni pizza with mushrooms. I want to discuss adding mushrooms. That's how I try to teach young people when you're doing an amendment is that you are only working with the amendment. It's been seconded, and I want to ask as president, what is your thoughts about adding mushrooms? Let the other lie right now. And then people can say, I hate mushrooms. Oh, they're really good. They're healthy. They're not healthy. All of that because we're only talking about mushrooms at this point. We're not talking about pepperoni. We're not talking about pizzas. We're talking about mushrooms. At that point, after you've had the discussion, you're going to call for a vote on the amendment. Again, I courage young people when doing this, you are going to call for the amendment only. All in favor of adding mushrooms. Signify by saying I. As you can see, I did not bring in a pepperoni pizza at all. I am dealing with the motion only. All in favor of adding mushrooms, say I. All oppose, same sign or say. If the adding the mushrooms passes, the main motion now is, we are all in favor of ordering pepperoni and mushroom pizza at the next four H club meeting, say Aye. So you've now brought the mushrooms into the main motion. Some people get confused when you deal with the amendment by saying, all in favor of having mushrooms on our pizza at the next meeting, that's how they often get it confused, and it feels weird that then you go and vote again. So you vote and address the amendments, dealing only with the amendments, and then you go to the actual motion that now includes the amendments. So So does a person's name providing the second to motion, or can amendments need to be recorded in the minutes by Secretary? So, yes, all amendments need to be recorded. And the person making the motions and making the amendments, names are recorded. Help your secretaries out. Because based on Robert, because the second is only moving it to discussion, you never have to record their name. So when I act as a secretary and any boards of councils or groups I belong to, I will say, Christine moved to have pepperoni pizza, and then it's ended. And then it says seconded. Doesn't say who seconded, doesn't say anything. It says one simple word, seconded. And then any relevancy to the discussion is recorded and then the vote. So I often hear from volunteers that young people like to hear or see their name and minutes. So if you want to record the person's name who's seconded, again, there's no parliamentary police in four H. You can do that, but it makes a lot easier on your secretaries if you don't, too, because of the flow, they can quickly get their meetings. So So Amendments. Seems like confusing. I know. I also say that in our land of four H, there's no reason really to be addressing more than one or two amendments at any given time because it gets very hectic and a little bit chaotic. So if you have to amend a motion several times, you're really truly better to work with your young people to pull that motion from the floor and start all over again. Yes, for clarification, you can just record seconded. Yes, you can. All right. Looking at officers, as I said, there's many ways that you can nominate an officer or do elections. Chris has dropped in there, some resources. But you can get nominations for off running for officers by having a nominating committee. I'm not saying that these are that one's my favorite because I like young people running off the floor. But if you have a large group and in groups, you can see where a nominating committee can work with the young people ahead of time asking them if they would like to work. If you're running a nominating committee and working with the young people, you should offer them to come off the floor as well that opportunity. But nominating committee allows for conversations ahead of time with the young people so that they know what they are running for. Nominations from the floor is just that. Anybody can nominate anybody to run for a position. Nominations do not need to be seconded. It just needs to say emotion that a person is, you know, they are being, Nancy, I'm going to pick on you because you're on my screen right now. You know, I moved to elect or nominate Nancy for president. And so Nancy would say, we look as current president and say Nancy, if you accept a nomination. She would nod right now because she's just going to be helpful with me. Oh, no, Nancy. But yes, there we go. And then you're going to accept it. We're going to move on. Other nominations. So no seconded needed at all. You do need a motion to close the floor after you have accepted all nominations so that it does allow you to move to the voting mechanisms. This again, is where I talked earlier that I think it's super important that we do unanimous ballots or secret ballots so that we are hopefully teaching our young people that we are electing people on their ability to in their skill set, not because Nancy and I are really good friends. It is about them being able to see their friends or the people that they are in the club with, be able to do the job that they want to do. After asking young people across the state numerous times, they do agree that they would vote for the right person. I had to use this as a scenario. Nancy and I are running for treasure in Nancy's land, one plus one is three, and in my land, one plus one is two. I think you probably want me as treasurer, right? I know Nancy just gave you more money, but not really. But Nancy has more best friends in the group. They're going to vote for her if it has to be seen versus versus a secret ballot type of thing. If you have nobody running against anybody, you do not have to go through the formal process of getting paper and pencil out and doing all that. You can close the floor because Nancy is the only one running for president and say, I move to close the floor and cast unanimous ballot all in one sweep, if you would like to do that. So The other thing I would say is if you have a president who is only making or breaking ties and you do a secret ballot, I encourage you strongly to have them write on the ballot with their answer, they're on the outside, put president, and then the people counting the ballots would only use it if they need to versus having to go out and ask. I say this is being very important, especially an election process because I made this horrible mistake, and the president had to break a tie between two of their friends. Publicly in front of both their friends. Horrendous thing I put that young person through. One ended up being a friend in the future. One did not. It's just the way you know, things happen, unfortunately. So just think about that. They don't need to know that they did break the tie. Other people can argue that that's the lesson of being a president. Not going to disagree with that. I just feel when you're doing electing officers, it's better that way. If you want to make them make or break a tie and other things, that's fine. That can be their life lesson without picking between friends. When we put up positive youth development lins, I would always have them write their ballots and put their like their president on it so that you don't In this sense, where it could be two people who put that positive youth development lins on and don't make it have it be a public thing that they're breaking a tie. In traditional motion meetings where that's a different story, but that positive youth development lin says, have them give it to you, have it on their thing that it's present, so no one actually knows that there was a tie. I think that's helpful for all parties involved in elections. So Officer installation programs. We find are very a great opportunity to recognize the young people that are taking on these leadership roles. When I keep talking about young people because we're talking about four H, anything that we do, when elected as an officer, having some formal passing of the Baton, I would say, or the gavel in this sense, the record keeping. I recently as a group took over as secretary of a local community Board, I got nothing. I didn't even get the password into where we keep things electronically as a historical type of thing. So I had to ask for that. So sometimes having a formal passing of the baton in that sense, especially with young people recognizes them, thanks them, appreciates them, as well as the young people who are leaving that office. It also gives them the opportunity to be recognized, appreciated, and sent on their way for doing a great job for that year. So There are some great ceremonies online, believe it or not. You can Google that, as well as get them off of our web page that we're going to share with you, brand new this year, we have developed a club development web page and is really truly geared towards leaders that lead clubs or lead projects, and you lead young people in a formal club setting. So we hope that you'll find those resources very helpful. And that is part of one of the links that Chris just dropped in here. So With that, we have time here, offer you a look at two different activities that we could show and share with you for moving into your clubs. But before I do that, so that we could do this without a recording, is that a good Chris we can do? As we talk about the importance of youth voice, parliamentary procedure is a great way to engage the young people in youth voice, having youth officers, having young people who are, teaching them the skills and the importance of what it takes to be an officer. As well as training the young people who are in the meeting, how to make a motion, how to be a club member. What is the expectations of them? Because your officers are only as successful as your group allows them to be. I always say this. I never want all of my top leaders to be officers simultaneously, because I don't have anybody else out here leading. And so mixing that up, mentoring, bringing them along is always an ideal, but you can't control that, so that is an election process that happens that way. But making sure that you are giving the young people the tools so that they understand and don't assume that they know. Robert's roller order or what's expected of them in a meeting will amplify and hopefully give them a better youth voice into your process