NFPA Journal - Spring 2021 - 54

NFPA staffers say that, while electronic technical meetings
will not supplant in-person gatherings, some virtual aspects
will likely be carried over once in-person meetings resume.

allowed vote on each motion. Despite
taking three weeks, the process was generally regarded as a success.
Much like the remote committee
meetings, observers noted that the
electronic technical meeting provided a
platform for more voices to contribute
to the process. " It became evident early
in the debate that we had a number of
people who were participating in the
meeting debate for the first time, " Bellis
said. " Some stakeholders either don't
have the opportunity to travel to the
live events, or they choose not to speak
in front of a crowd in response to other
points offered during debate. The electronic format opens the door to their
participation, and the added breadth of
perspectives represented in the debate
can only strengthen NFPA's standards. "
With the future uncertain due to
COVID, NFPA announced in January
that the 2021 Conference & Expo, including the annual technical meeting, will
again be held electronically rather than
in person. Organizers say the format
for the 2021 technical meeting will be
essentially the same as last year, but
with a few added features to enhance
the experience for participants before
and during the event. Bellis said that
tutorials and guidance for participation
are being developed for launch well in
advance of the technical session. While
specific changes have not yet been finalized, she said, the 2021 meeting, like last
year, will use " alternative procedures " so

that standards with CAMs for both fall
2020 and annual 2021 revision cycles
can be processed by the Standards
Council, with input from the public and
eligible voting NFPA members.
Once the pandemic is in the rear
view, the plan is to return to in-person
technical meetings, which had been the
norm for over a century. However, lessons learned from these unprecedented
electronic meetings will likely inform
future technical meetings in some
capacity. They could lead, for instance,
to a hybrid approach, where members
can debate motions in an electronic
forum and follow that with live debate
as part of the in-person meeting. That
option could allow for more voices to be
heard and reduce the time necessary to
complete the live technical session.
All of that is still speculation. The
Standards Council will look at the lessons learned from the 2020 and 2021
technical meetings and decide what,
if anything, to carry forward once the
in-person meetings return.
" COVID threw us for a loop, but we
learned a lot along the way, " Dubay said.
" All things considered, I think we're
in a better position now than we were
before. I don't anticipate that we'll ever
get rid of in-person meetings, but our
volunteer committees now have more
tools going forward to accomplish our
standards-development goals. "
JESSE ROMAN is associate editor at NFPA Journal.

NFPA

Motions (CAMs) to alter language in
the code.
As pandemic concerns began to
develop, well before the decision to
cancel the live event was finalized, discussions were taking place to explore
how to maintain this stage of NFPA's
standards development. " The technical meeting is a core element of our
standards development process that
was essential to preserve, " said Dawn
Michele Bellis, NFPA standards council
secretary. " Numerous potential options
were explored to ensure that the valuable input to the Standards Council
from the public and eligible voting
NFPA members was not lost in 2020. "
In the end, the NFPA Standards Council, along with the association's Board
of Directors, approved the Temporary
Technical Meeting Convention Rules
for 2020, which allowed the meeting to
be held electronically. Like traditional
technical meetings, proposed motions
were filed in advance and certified by
the Motions Committee, but live debate
was replaced with written debate online.
Each day, NFPA staff published a cumulative report, in PDF form, of comments
received on the respective CAMs on the
technical meeting site. This allowed
stakeholders to track the debate and
submit comments of support or opposition into the discussion. After two
weeks, the comments were closed, and a
week-long voting session began. Eligible
NFPA members who had registered were

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NFPA Journal - Spring 2021

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