1
GA Petition Formatting Guide:
Motion Title
WHEREAS statements are meant to set the context for your action items found in the “Be it
resolved” or “therefore be it resolved” parts of the motion
WHEREAS you can include as many or as few whereas statements to give readers the
information needed to make an informed decision on whether to support your motion or not.
WHEREAS the motion once passed, according to Robert’s Rules of order loses its whereas
clauses, they are not actually part of the final resolution.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT a specific action be taken by the assembly, or delegated to another
authority to act (ie. The SFUO executive, The SFUO Board of Administration) (ie. “BE IT
RESOLVED THAT the General assembly instruct the SFUO executive to buy an office fish to be
named Mo to improve office morale.”
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the motion uses “be it resolved that” for the first action
item, and “Be it further resolved that” for each subsequent item.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT each “be it resolved that” or each “be it further resolved
that” clause must be related in terms of subject matter (ie: “BE IT RESOLVED THAT the
General assembly instruct the SFUO executive to buy an office fish to be named Mo to improve
office morale. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT Mo be given a budget of 200.00/month for
premium fish food pellets. A clause that said “BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the SFUO
executive also buy a cat for the office” would be unrelated to be resolution to buy a fish and
would therefore require a separate motion and would be ruled out of order
Note:
Statements in italics can be adapted, but parts in normal text should be left as is when formatting
your motion.
GA Motions and petitions are to be sent to executive@sfuo.ca as well as the physical copy
dropped off to the SFUO main office (07-85 University Pvt.) no later than Friday October
16th, 2015 at 5pm.
2
Petition for Above Motion
Name
Student Number
Signature
3
4
5
6