Why I built Ask the Chair
I’ve served on boards for most of my adult life — the Montgomery City Council, the founding board of LEAD Academy, the Alabama Public Television Commission. For years I chaired meetings and knew the procedures cold.
Then I spent a few years serving as a member, not the chair. And you lose it faster than you think.
When I was elected Chairman of the Alabama Public Television Foundation, I assumed it would all come right back. I didn’t prepare the way I should have. We had no parliamentarian, and our bylaws and the minutes of past meetings weren’t easy to get to in the moment.
It showed. Motions came in an order I didn’t handle cleanly. When a question came up about what the board had decided before, or what our bylaws actually required, nobody could answer it on the spot. I found myself hesitating over things I used to do without thinking. I was embarrassed — and I knew the board deserved better from its chair.
So I went looking for help I could use during a meeting, not after it: what to say next, what the rule is, what our own bylaws say, and what we decided last year. I couldn’t find it in one place. So I built it.
Ask the Chair is what I wish I’d had that first year:
- • plain-English answers with the rule cited
- • a script for the chair, written from your own agenda
- • your bylaws and past minutes, searchable when you need them
- • draft minutes from the meeting recording, so the record is done before the next meeting
Most chairs aren’t parliamentarians, and most boards don’t have one in the room. They shouldn’t need one to run a fair, orderly meeting.
— William A. Green, Jr., Founder