About

About Jurassic Parliament

We are passionate about helping people understand and utilize Robert’s Rules of Order so that they can hold effective public and nonprofit board meetings while minimizing drama.

Jurassic Parliament was established by me (Ann Macfarlane) and my colleague Andrew Estep in 2007. After being horrified by the complicated organization of the official Robert’s Rules of Order reference book when I first encountered it back in 1999, I decided to dig in and learn everything I could, and see if I could make it easier to understand and put into practice.

In our opinion, anyone who masters the key principles and guidelines can run great meetings—meetings that are fair, efficient, and democratic. These principles are not hard to learn, they’re just different—and we’ve developed a fun way to help you understand and implement them.

Our Team

Ann Macfarlane

Professional Registered Parliamentarian

Andrew Estep

Certified Association Executive

Emilia Sanchez

Registered Parliamentarian, Certified Municipal Clerk

Tisha Gieser

Registered Parliamentarian, Certified Municipal Clerk

OUR MISSION

We are on a mission to help community leaders and their organizations get things done to enhance and improve the communities they live in and serve.

OUR VALUES

  • Servant-leadership While traditional leaders first serve their company or organization, servant-leaders serve their people first because they believe that empowering people FIRST is what makes an organization thrive.
  • Community collaboration While we love to write a lot ourselves, there is a whole community filled with thought leaders providing rich perspectives on leadership, community, Robert’s Rules, and effective meetings. We constantly tap into this community and bring their ideas to a wider audience.
  • Honesty and integrity In order to make the positive changes we hope to see, it’s important that we provide an honest and safe arena for our students, educators and collaborators to explore ideas, challenge each other, and come out the other side better for it.

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU

  • We’re going to have fun! Robert’s Rules of Order is powerful stuff—but the reference materials can be dry and confusing. We are committed to making learning fun so that the information stays with you for years to come.
  • Our classes are a mix of information, collaboration and networking. Our live workshops are specifically designed so that you can chat with others in your same position, because we believe through collaboration we all become better people.
  • Valuable, free content will always be available. We are proud of our blog posts—and we spend a lot of time making sure they are well-researched, pull from our personal training and experience, and provide on-the-ground tips that you can use right away.

Why the dinosaurs? Funny you should ask….