STANDING ORDERS FOR MEETINGS OF HOUNSLOW TRADES UNION COUNCIL

1. Business should be taken in the following order:

Minutes of previous meeting;

New and re-appointed delegates;

Report of Executive Committee;

Correspondence;

Any motion, the consideration of which was adjourned at the previous meeting;

Reports, including TUC Unemployed Centres, climate change and green issues

and anti-racist activity; and

Motions, of which notice has been given.

2. Notices of motion should be sent by affiliated trade union branches to the trades

union council Secretary in writing not less than seven days before the trades council meeting at which they are to be discussed. With a similar timescale, trades union councils should forward notice of motions to the County Association Secretary in writing. Wherever possible sufficient notice should be given to enable delegates to seek the views of their branch to the proposals being made in the motion. This may mean that motions are laid on the table of the meeting for full discussion at the following meeting of the trades council or county association

3. The mover of any original motion but not an amendment shall have the right to reply but no other delegate shall be allowed to speak more than once on the same question unless permission be given to explain or on point of order addressed to the Chair when the remarks made must be strictly confined to the explanation or point of order. 5 minutes shall be allowed to the mover of a motion and 3 minutes for each succeeding speaker. The mover shall have 3 minutes to reply to the discussion, but she/he shall introduce no new matter into the reply. The motion shall be put immediately the mover has replied. The time limits for speakers shall not apply in a special address to the Association.

4 If an amendment be carried it shall displace the motion and itself become the substantive motion, whereupon any amendment may be moved thereto. The

President may demand that all motions and amendments should be handed up to him/her in writing.

5 When an amendment is made to an original motion, no second amendment shall be discussed until the first amendment is disposed of.

6 When delegates consider a question has been sufficiently discussed the motion may be proposed that the question be now put. If this proposition is carried the President/Chair shall give the mover of the original motion the opportunity to reply, after which the motion under discussion shall be immediately put to the vote.

7 The decision of the President/Chair on any point of order shall be final.

8 In the case of the voting being equal, the President/Chair may give a casting vote.

9 No resolution passed by the trades union council or Association shall be rescinded or amended at the same meeting at which it is passed. Notice of its rescindment or amendment must be given as provided in Standing Order No. 2, but the resolution shall not be rescinded or amended unless by the consent of two thirds of the delegates present at the meeting when it is considered.

10 Any delegate may for stated purposes move the suspension of Standing Orders.

The motion on being seconded shall be forthwith put to the meeting without debate or amendment, and if two-thirds of the delegates vote in favour thereof, but not otherwise, the suspension moved shall immediately take effect.