House meetings are for the purpose of keeping the general body of the house informed of the house status, facilitating social interaction, and having the group vote on how to operate the co-op.
All Inter-Cooperative Houses are governed by the ICC Standing Rules and the Constitution & Standing Rules of the House. These documents can be found online and are often posted around the building. All citations given are to the House Constitution unless otherwise stated.
Structure
House Meetings generally use the following structure:
- Meeting Minutes approval (ask Members to request changes, 2 min)
- House Officer Announcements (~15 min)
- Board Rep Time (5 min)
- Topical House Discussions (i.e. Work Holiday discussion, usually 15+ min each)
- House Proposals (~10 min ea.)
- Release Requests (5 min ea.), including Food Release, Work Release, and House Charges Release
- Non-Student Approvals (5 min ea.)
- Pet Approvals (5 min ea.)
- Member Time (10 min)
- Pinecones (5 min)
- Meeting Adjourned.
The specific order of the House Meeting agenda can vary (this is from the Fall/Winter 2016 - 2017 agendas).
Facilitation
The Vice President of Suites leads and keeps order at meetings and allows members to speak, giving each member a fair chance to speak. The Vice President of Suites and President may participate in discussion but should relinquish the chair temporarily when doing so in order to remain impartial.
Frequency
Regular House meetings are held every two weeks, and special House meetings are called when extraordinary business must be dealt with. House meetings follow the common rules of order called parliamentary procedure, except where otherwise specified in the House Constitution.
Proposals
Proposals for consideration at House meetings must be emailed to the President to be added to the next House meeting’s agenda. See the current President's emails for the deadline for submissions. Only proposals on the meeting agenda, or secondary motions made to these proposals (like amendments), may be debated at the House meeting. During a meeting, any member may request to add a proposal to the agenda, but the House must unanimously consent to adding it. Any other member can object to adding it (III.A.4).
Proposals are debated in the following way:
- A member makes a proposal, stating it as an affirmative action to be taken. If the member is absent, the President states it.
- The Presidents asks for a second. At least one other member must say “I second the motion” or simply “second.” If none does, there is no further discussion of the proposal.
- The President asks other members if they have any questions to clarify the proposal.
- The President allows members to discuss the proposal. By tradition, if the proposal concerns a specific member, that member leaves the room during the discussion.
- Any member may propose an amendment to the proposal under discussion. This secondary motion must be discussed and voted on before returning to consideration of the original proposal. By house tradition, a member may amend his or her own proposal by “friendly amendment” without a vote to do so.
- Any member may move to close debate and vote immediately, but this motion must be passed by a ⅔ majority rather than a simple majority (“half plus one”).
- Though unconstitutional, Escher has chosen to continue Google form ballots since House Meetings were virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic. The President sends out this ballot following each House Meeting and emails results 24 hours later. All votes are cross-checked for duplicates and email addresses that correspond with current residents.
- Proposals pass if a majority of members voting vote “yes”.
Release Requests
Release requests for consideration at House meetings must be emailed to the President to be added to the next House meeting’s agenda. See the current President's emails for the deadline for submissions.
Release requests are debated in the following way:
- The member requesting the release either gives a verbal statement, reads their written statement, or the Vice President of Suites reads it in their absence.
- The floor is opened for questions for the member requesting a release.
- The member requesting the release leaves the room for private discussion.
- When private discussion is closed an officer goes to bring back the requesting member.
- The President sends out this ballot following each House Meeting and emails results 24 hours later.
Contents
Traditional House Meeting Etiquette
Hitchhiking
Three types of things happen at House meetings: announcements and reports, open discussion, and proposals. Members who wish to speak raise their hand and are added to a queue (often called the stack) by the President. ICC tradition allows “hitchhiking”, whereby members “jump the queue” by putting out their thumb to indicate that they wish to add a short comment to the previous statement.
Straw Poll
Sometimes, during the course of discussion, a member asks for a straw poll of members. This is a non-binding vote that helps members determine the group opinion.
Absentee Participation
If you are not able to attend a meeting but still want your voice to be heard on an issue, you have a couple of options:
- Email the President a statement to be read during the meeting for your proposal or another person's proposal. This has become more commonplace to do even if members are planning to be present because it can give more context in the agenda and minutes to members who are unable to attend.
- Read the meeting minutes and then vote on the ballot sent to the house via email.