Flight Training

Serving as the presiding officer over a meeting takes skill and practice to master. Few people develop that far simply because they do not get the proper training or put the time into it. There are some who have presided over meetings for years, putting in the time, but never mastering the skill because the training needs to go with the practice.

Consider the analogy of becoming a pilot. Just flying a plane around the sky by yourself will not do. To be licensed to fly, one must not only go to class and take an exam, but log forty hours of flying experience. Twenty hours must come from an authorized instructor, followed by ten hours of solo flight. In addition, two cross country flights of 100 and 150 miles must be achieved. Ten takeoffs and ten landings are needed, and three hours of flying on instruments is required.

Such practice would make any presiding officer a skilled and experienced master. As a registered parliamentarian, I certainly have the knowledge, but book knowledge is not enough. Just as a pilot must react fairly quickly to changing conditions in the air, a presiding officer must react quickly to changing conditions in a meeting. If pilots could take the time to look up the answer in a book, there would be little need for the rigorous training. A presiding officer who must repeatedly look up the answer in Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised will lose the trust and confidence of the assembly. To be a good presider, the knowledge must be combined with training and practice.

I took an inventory of my presiding experience, which began in 1990 when I chaired a small non-profit board. Since then, I figure that I have over 300 hours of flight time logged in the chair. I think there are three categories of flight that one must experience: presiding over small boards and committees (twelve members of less); presiding over large board and committees (twelve or more); and presiding over a convention. In the modern computer era, I think there is an instrument flight equivalent for conducting a teleconference or web-conference. My tallies for these categories is as follows:

             Kirk's Flight Log

• Small boards    139 hours
• Large boards   160
• Conventions      17

Of the 139 hours with small boards, only 14 hours of presiding was by web-conference. It has only been within the last year that I have conducted web-based meetings. More practice is needed here.

This summer, I plan to begin teaching a class on presiding. The class will be limited to about 6 students, so that each person will have the opportunity to spend time in the chair with the gavel. Stay tuned for follow up reports.