I feel bad that I’ve neglected this rule. It’s such an important little one, too. If the chair makes a decision that you think is wrong this is your way to remedy that. You might manage to get 5 minutes out of this if you are looking for time because people will be doing the “what” “huh” trying to sort out what you mean if you don’t have a scary parliamentarian standing at the ready and if you do, feed and water him until he needs to use the bathroom, then attack with whatever you’ve got, if you’re really good you’ll feed him questionable Chinese food, but I’d never suggest something like that, I’m a wonderful and nice person who would never think something like that.
This does need to be seconded so make sure to have your buddy at the ready. Have I mentioned cookies are a good way to make friends? Bring cookies and it’s almost difficult to -not- get a second, I mean, they are cookies who doesn’t love the food provider? The motion (“I appeal the decision from the chair!”) can be made at any point as long as nothing of consequence has happened since (debate or business) the decision was made. If you think there should be an appeal, just jump up on top of the table and do it right away. It is an interruptible thing so you don’t need to get the floor first.
When you appeal, you only appeal the decision of the chair, not the person standing in front of the room. If you want someone else to run the meeting that’s a whole different thing, but hey if you are really a pain and make the body vote on every decision by the chair -which is your right as said pain- then they might either not run next time or if you are really lucky, get flustered and do things wrong. This is of course is a horrible thing to do and I would never condone such actions.
The appeal can only be on a ruling made by the chair. If the chair says to a point of order that his opinion would be that a motion would be out of order, you can’t appeal that. You can make the motion anyway and then wait for him to rule it out of order and appeal the ruling. Complicated I know, but it can actually be handy and give you a chance to prepare, any time a point of order is made or the chair is asked for a ruling, perk up your ears.
When the chair puts the ruling to the body to decide the decision is made by majority. How the chair words the question can also be a question you raise. Make sure everyone in the body is clear about which way to vote if they want to overrule the chair. If you think the chair isn’t counting votes correctly, call for a Division the chair wins by Majority or tie. Yep even a tie.
One last exciting thing about an appeal is that you get to debate it. And yes you can of course set limits on that debate. After the motion is made it’s basically just another simple motion so you’ve just added in more motions, which of course take up time.
If you are looking to shoot down the appealer you can basically scoff them into loserdom. Sorry, it’s true though. Unless you have a room full of parliamentarians, in which case I recommend taking a nap, people will likely get annoyed if you can just rev them into it. Get up speak against them and say that they are just using this as a stall tactic, the rebuttal to this naturally being that everyone should get an opportunity to raise their concerns. (As a side note I hope that two people who read this column and are on the opposite side of something never are in a meeting together, just imagine the havoc!)
Good luck with this, just use it carefully, it can be boringly dangerous if used wrong.
*Disclaimer: This column was written under the influence of NyQuil, I take no responsibilities for…well anything, now come back pretty fairy!
