ABC of Chairmanship
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''A.B.C. of Chairmanship'' by
Walter Citrine Walter McLennan Citrine, 1st Baron Citrine, (22 August 1887 – 22 January 1983) was one of the leading British and international trade unionists of the twentieth century and a notable public figure. Yet, apart from his renowned guide to the co ...
is considered by many in the Labour and Union movements of the UK to be the definitive book on how meetings should be run and how committees should be managed.Typical usage se
TUC guideline article

University and College Union advice sheet, 2016
/ref> It originated as notes for Electrical Trades Union (ETU) activists in the Merseyside area of the UK – they had Liverpool, Birkenhead and Bootle branches – in the 1910s by Citrine who was then chairman of their district committee. J.G. Moher, ''Walter Citrine: a pioneer of industrial cooperation, 2016'' in Other Worlds of Labour Union meetings were then important places where the terms of employment in the trade were keenly discussed by union activists, news of employment opportunities were shared and some general social life ensued in the pub where they usually met. It was to guide these activist electricians – a very intelligent but sometimes fractious community who tended to be critical of their ETU headquarters officials in
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
– that Citrine devised the notes, based on parliamentary rules of debate, to ensure the efficient and orderly conduct of the business. So well received were they that the ETU adopted them nationally in its Rule Book in 1914. Over the years, they were revised and adapted to changing circumstances in a union which grew vastly during World War 1. In 1920, Citrine, who had stood as a
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
parliamentary candidate for the Wallasey seat in the 1918 general election, was encouraged to produce an expanded version of this guide for other unions and the Labour Party, entitled ''The Labour Chairman''. This was published with an introduction by a leading
National Union of Railwaymen The National Union of Railwaymen was a trade union of railway workers in the United Kingdom. The largest railway workers' union in the country, it was influential in the national trade union movement. History The NUR was an industrial union ...
and TUC figure of that time, J. H. (‘Jimmy’) Thomas. It had considerable influence and became an authoritative source of rulings on all procedural aspects of the conduct of meetings from branch to national levels. It was this book, later updated by Citrine, which was published by the
Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...
, co-operative society, NCLC and many unions as ''The ABC of Chairmanship'' from 1939 onwards. New editions were published regularly until the 1980s and all those whose duty it fell to chair or manage meetings (not just by union and Labour Party officers), saw their well-thumbed copies as ‘their bible’.
Alan Johnson Alan Arthur Johnson (born 17 May 1950) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Education and Skills from 2006 to 2007, Secretary of State for Health from 2007 to 2009, Home Secretary from 2009 to 2010, and Shadow Chanc ...
MP, former General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union and Home Secretary described ''Citrine'' (as it is generally called), as his and all his colleagues’ key guide.
Alan Johnson Alan Arthur Johnson (born 17 May 1950) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Education and Skills from 2006 to 2007, Secretary of State for Health from 2007 to 2009, Home Secretary from 2009 to 2010, and Shadow Chanc ...
, ''Please Mr Postman – A Memoir'', (2014), 245-6, 152-3.
Walter Citrine Walter McLennan Citrine, 1st Baron Citrine, (22 August 1887 – 22 January 1983) was one of the leading British and international trade unionists of the twentieth century and a notable public figure. Yet, apart from his renowned guide to the co ...
was a leading British
trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
ist of the twentieth century.


References

{{Parliamentary Procedure Handbooks and manuals Parliamentary authority 1939 non-fiction books