Quite some time ago, I discovered an excellent online resource for parliamentary procedure. It is the official web forum of Robert’s Rules of Order, and is known as the RONR Message Board. One might expect that such a forum would be mostly dead, with perhaps only a few posts every week. On the contrary, several new threads are created every day, and some threads reach double-digit posts within a few hours.

The posters on the site can be roughly divided into two categories: those who ask questions about RONR, and those who answer them. Membership in the former group is ephemeral—there is no registration, and I doubt many people come back to ask a second question. Members of the latter group are, generally speaking, expert parliamentarians who volunteer their time to help the ignorant over the Internet.

When I first started posting, I was a questioner. My questions were a lot tougher and more complex than the ones usually seen, but posed little challenge to the seasoned veterans of the message board. In an effort to give something back to the community, I started answering some of the easier questions myself.

This behaviour soon led to an addiction, and I found myself checking the message board day and night, even when I should have been writing essays or studying for exams. More and more I found myself answering questions and offering suggestions. Occasionally, my statements would be contradicted by more experienced parliamentarians, but I nevertheless developed a reputation for usually giving the right answer.

One of the expert parliamentarians contacted me personally, to welcome me to the fold. When I asked him about career opportunities in the field, he encouraged me to take the entrance exam for the National Association of Parliamentarians, and to work towards my Professional Registered Parliamentarian designation. He told me that being a parliamentarian rarely constitutes a full-time job, but that it can be an interesting sideline.

Apparently, the biggest problem with finding work as a parliamentarian is that very few people are aware the field even exists. It is especially problematic in Canada, where the word “parliamentarian” is far more frequently applied to elected politicians than it is to experts in parliamentary procedure. Nevertheless, it is something I’d like to explore more thoroughly in the near future.