Easy-to-use rules for meetings of any size

Are you searching for simple meeting rules – easy for all members to understand and follow? Instead of spending time arguing the rules, you can focus on the decisions to be made together. Democratic Rules of Order is the parliamentary standard that fully protects every member’s right to equal participation in orderly meetings. It does this with concise, common sense rules without jargon or unnecessary protocol. Based on the natural laws of democracy, the rules are equally effective in small groups using consensus or for large organizations with a formal Chair.

Some advantages are:

• Easy for all members to understand
• Can be read in an hour
• Only 27 pages of rules, plus 37 pages of examples
• Appropriate for any group size
• Equally useful for formal or informal Chairs
• No jargon or complicated classifications to learn
• Based on the natural laws of democracy:

When all members understand the rules, you remove a barrier to participation and thus have a more true democracy.

Democratic Rules of Order demonstrate that efficient, democratic decision-making is a simple and natural process. Meetings that are governed by straightforward rules enable the Chair and the participants to focus on issues without being preoccupied with the rules. Within the simple meeting structure prescribed by Democratic Rules of Order, members reach agreements more quickly and easily and ultimately, make better decisions. See the short summary of the rules.

This book can be adopted as the official rules of order for almost any organization. It is a reliable, universal standard. Through ten editions, it has been thoroughly revised to be sure that each point is crystal clear and that not a single necessary rule is missing. The rules of all editions are so similar, however, that earlier editions can be used along with the latest edition.

New 10th edition!

We are thrilled that Democratic Rules of Order will be published by New Society Publishers as a new 10th edition with a new cover.  The rules themselves will be essentially the same, though edited for clarity and style.

The 10th edition ebook is also available for immediate use.  You can have an easy reference from your laptop and/or smart phone. Included is a printable summary of the rules and the flow chart.

Try it out! It can’t do any harm and it could make a dramatic improvement to your meetings!