A new research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities presents a teaching-note case of a coastal shire minutes secretary who records lodged apologies as sitting members so the chamber never lapses.
One minutes secretary kept a nine-member chamber sitting for a civic year by reading the apologies as present
Four of eleven ordinary meetings of a nine-member coastal shire would have lapsed in a single civic year, had the minutes secretary counted only the chairs. The Apology Sits, a research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities, follows that officer through the attendance book and sets the year out as a teaching-note case whose recommended standing order partner shires now adopt. The lead author is Doctoral Candidate Sunniva Balogun, with Lecturer Lindiwe Achterberg and Senior Lecturer Runa Adegoke, Convenor of the Strategic Drift Survey.
An apology, once read, sat. The chamber that would have lapsed is the chamber the book already had.
— Sunniva Balogun, Doctoral Candidate, School of Emergent Priorities
The attendance book, forty-one apology slips, and the gallery attendant’s fire-safety occupancy sheet were read together across eleven ordinary meetings. Book membership never fell below six. Physical occupancy, reconstructed from empty chairs, fell below quorum four times. The teaching note’s recommended answer is the published standing order: a lodged apology constitutes the member for quorum, and the item is unreviewable once read.
The School offers the case as the account of a decision the chamber had already made. Publication is how that decision becomes the protocol a partner shire can run without a further resolution.
Lecturer Lindiwe Achterberg said the empty chairs were never in dispute. “The question was whether the book was allowed to keep the meeting in the room.”
The full poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.wdd7er.