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Canceling meetings


Tom Morelock

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To all those who say that meetings can be cancelled, what happens if some members decide to meet anyway, and a quorum is present at the cancelled meeting? Is this meeting valid? Does notice need to be given that the meeting shall still be held? How much notice? Who gives it? How shall the notice be given?

As for canceling the meeting in the first place, who can make this decision? Does notice need to be given that the meeting is cancelled? How much notice? Who gives it? How shall the notice be given?

It seems to me that the decided advantage in a firm rule that meetings cannot be cancelled is that there are fewer questions to be answered. If an assembly wishes to adopt its own rules for canceling meetings, which will answer these questions, that's fine. Without any guidance for these questions in RONR, however, I don't know what the answers should be in a society without such rules.

 

All very good questions.

 

I think any organization that has a firm rule that meetings cannot be cancelled or rescheduled is asking for trouble. There's always something that might happen. Bad weather, a fire at the meeting hall, I know of one organization that didn't meet for four years, because the Civil War was going on.

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All very good questions.

I think any organization that has a firm rule that meetings cannot be cancelled or rescheduled is asking for trouble. There's always something that might happen. Bad weather, a fire at the meeting hall, I know of one organization that didn't meet for four years, because the Civil War was going on.

I'm not saying that an organization should have a firm rule that meetings cannot be cancelled, but I am saying that the default assumption should be that a meeting cannot be cancelled unless the organization's rules provide for canceling meetings. There are many very good reasons why an organization might wish to adopt its own rules for cancelling meetings.

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I think the suggestion is wonderful and I hope the authors take it seriously. I would, however, write the clarification in such a way as to suggest that the organization's bylaws should create either one unified rule or they should have separate cancellation requirements for the different groups covered by the bylaws. I strongly suspect an organization would want one set of requirements for cancelling the meeting of the assembly and a different set of requirements for the cancellation of board or committee meetings. After all, the consequences of a cancellation is very different for each of these, but that is for them to decide.

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