Sunday was all about party business. We got an incredible amount done, including adopting a new constitution and dealing with 20 motions. That’s impressive, but it didn’t all go smoothly. Here are some thoughts on the process (mainly for Kevin’s benefit, obviously).

Being a veteran of many World Science Fiction Society Business Meetings, I am depressingly familiar with parliamentary practice and know how to run such a meeting. Most people had no idea. Indeed, many delegates appeared to have not been paying attention prior to Conference and were surprised to find that there was no process for amending motions on the day. Anyone who has been at a WSFS meeting knows how much chaos that can cause, and we didn’t have a second day of business giving us the luxury of referring motions to a committee overnight to have the wording sorted out.

All of the motions were published to members in advance of Conference, and there was time to submit amendments and discuss them with the proposers. This might lead to amendments being accepted prior to Conference. Indeed I did that on one of the motions I co-proposed.

Having seen an early draft of the motion about so-called “revenge porn” I pointed out that there is a big difference between re-tweeting or sharing a post on social media, and deliberately putting those same details on a for-profit website. We changed the wording of the motion to take account of that. Similar discussions could, I think, have resolved many of the issues raised in debate at Conference.

The party had taken an economic decision not to print either the Standing Orders governing debate or the list of motions. There were 1500 delegates and printing copies would be a major tree-killing exercise. I had copies on my iPad, and the conference staff put documents upon screen during debate. It is possible that there may be technological solutions that would make life easier. For example you could put up posters with QR codes to download documents onto a phone. And just having a PowerPoint presentation rather than fiddling with documents on Windows all the time would help. It is always helpful for the Chair to make it clear exactly what is being voted on before calling for a vote.

The one obvious flaw in the Standing Orders is the procedural motion to Refer Back a piece of business. This basically means that Conference likes the idea of the motion but cannot pass it without some degree of revision. Currently no debate is allowed on a motion to Refer Back. This led on a couple of occasions to members having no idea why the motion was being proposed. Some people did it right by speaking against the motion and then moving Refer Back at the end of their speech. One somewhat clueless person moved Refer Back before any debate had taken place (making it functionally equivalent to a WSFS motion of Objection to Consideration). Inevitably that was defeated.

For next year I suggest that anyone making a motion to Refer Back should be allowed to speak briefly to explain why they are doing so (unless they already have the floor – they shouldn’t be able to use Refer Back to extend a speech against).

The Standing Orders has one other quirk that bemuses me but doesn’t seem to be doing any harm. There is a procedural motion for Next Business which effectively moves on without a vote. Functionally I see no difference between this and Refer Back. It was never used, and I don’t see that it ever would be. Either you refer back, or you force a vote. Debate times mostly are controlled by the meeting staff and discussion was cut short on several occasions because there wasn’t time for everyone to speak, so the system works without this motion.

Another suggestion for next year might be an “Introduction to Policy Debate” workshop similar to the ones we have in WSFS so that people new to the process can learn about it in advance.

In terms of meeting management I would recommend more use of “if there is no objection” by the chair to move on quickly with uncontentious items. You don’t have to put everything to a vote. I despair of the addiction that British people have to demanding that abstentions be counted. Functionally an abstention has no effect on the vote. Furthermore there is no practical difference between an active abstention, failing to vote at all, or missing the vote because you were out of the room when the vote took place. We could save a lot of time in meetings by not asking for abstentions, particularly when the vote is close and tellers are required.

I have one final suggestion for the conduct of future meetings. In WSFS all Business Meetings are minuted, and these days are also recorded on video. One of the reasons for this is the concept of Legislative Intent. It is not always clear, years later, exactly what the movers of particular motion meant by the words they used. Motions should, of course, be accompanied by an explanatory rationale, but that won’t encompass explanations made during debate. It would be good to know what was said, and videoing of the debate would allow it to be shared with members who were unable to attend Conference. Yes, I know it is expensive, but WSFS runs on a shorter shoestring than WEP.

Finally I should report on the results of the elections. As some of you will know, I was a candidate for the Steering Committee. I was asked to stand, and agreed to do so without any expectation of being elected. The competition was fierce, and I think all of the candidates were better qualified than me in every area except their diversity. I stood to prove that I could. No one objected to a trans woman standing for election, and indeed several complete strangers came up to me and said they had voted for me. I count that as a win.

In the next section of this report I’ll discuss the actual policy debates.