Postpone to a certain time: motion required?

[Peter Bookman]

Our car club has had several acrimonious meetings and is considering adopting Robert's Rules to have a more orderly process. We have limited meeting time. Close to the time when we would normally adjourn, a motion was made for which there would not have been enough time for discussion. The chair ruled that the motion would be "carried over" to the next meeting. The person making the motion objected. Can the chair or presiding officer rule that a motion will not be heard until a subsequent meeting or is a vote needed to postpone a motion to the next meeting?

Thank you

[George Mervosh]

It can be postponed by majority vote if the next meeting will be held within a quarterly time interval.  

[Josh Martin]

11 minutes ago, Peter Bookman said:

Our car club has had several acrimonious meetings and is considering adopting Robert's Rules to have a more orderly process. We have limited meeting time. Close to the time when we would normally adjourn, a motion was made for which there would not have been enough time for discussion. The chair ruled that the motion would be "carried over" to the next meeting. The person making the motion objected. Can the chair or presiding officer rule that a motion will not be heard until a subsequent meeting or is a vote needed to postpone a motion to the next meeting?

The motion to Postpone to a Certain Time is debatable and requires a majority vote for adoption. The chair cannot rule on his own that the motion will not be heard until a subsequent meeting.

Given the circumstances which led to this situation, however, I would also note that that if a motion is pending when the meeting adjourns, the motion is automatically "carried over" to the next meeting. The motion to Adjourn is not debatable and requires a majority vote for adoption. There are some circumstances in which the chair may declare a meeting adjourned on his own, but this situation doesn't appear to be one of them.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

1 hour ago, Peter Bookman said:

The chair ruled that the motion would be "carried over" to the next meeting.

The person making the motion objected.

Can the chair or presiding officer rule that a motion will not be heard until a subsequent meeting or is a vote needed to postpone a motion to the next meeting?

"Can the chair rule that . . ."? -- No, not unilaterally.

The chair can use unanimous consent to attempt to "carry over" (Postpone to a Definite Time) the motion.

If unanimous consent is not achieved (as you describe, one person would object) then a formal vote will be necessary.

"Shall the motion be postponed to the next meeting? All in favor say aye. All opposed say no." -- The assembly decides whether to postpone it or not.

 

[Peter Bookman]

 

2 hours ago, Josh Martin said:

The motion to Postpone to a Certain Time is debatable and requires a majority vote for adoption. The chair cannot rule on his own that the motion will not be heard until a subsequent meeting.

Given the circumstances which led to this situation, however, I would also note that that if a motion is pending when the meeting adjourns, the motion is automatically "carried over" to the next meeting. The motion to Adjourn is not debatable and requires a majority vote for adoption. There are some circumstances in which the chair may declare a meeting adjourned on his own, but this situation doesn't appear to be one of them.

I very much appreciate all the helpful responses. I look forward to our club getting a more orderly and consistent process for its meetings and will recommend this forum as a valuable resource. May I ask what would be the circumstances under which the chair could unilaterally declare a meeting adjourned? Thank you.

[Hieu H. Huynh]

3 hours ago, Peter Bookman said:

Our car club has had several acrimonious meetings and is considering adopting Robert's Rules to have a more orderly process.

See this link on adopting Robert's Rules.

[Hieu H. Huynh]

19 minutes ago, Peter Bookman said:

I very much appreciate all the helpful responses. I look forward to our club getting a more orderly and consistent process for its meetings and will recommend this forum as a valuable resource. May I ask what would be the circumstances under which the chair could unilaterally declare a meeting adjourned? Thank you.

You may want to get the right book and see "Ordinary practice in adjourning" on p. 86 and "Cases where the assembly can adjourn without a motion" on pp. 240-241.

Also, the In Brief book may be of use.

[George Mervosh]

18 minutes ago, Peter Bookman said:

 

I very much appreciate all the helpful responses. I look forward to our club getting a more orderly and consistent process for its meetings and will recommend this forum as a valuable resource. May I ask what would be the circumstances under which the chair could unilaterally declare a meeting adjourned? Thank you.

1) An emergency such as a fire or riot, etc., where harm can come to the members.

2) When the time for adjournment has been previously established by a motion setting the time for adjournment, or the adoption of a program or agenda which sets the time.

3) When the chair asks at the conclusion of the order of business if there is any other business to come before the assembly, and pauses to be sure no one wishes to bring anything else  up, he can declare the meeting adjourned.

See Mr. Huynh's citations.

[Bruce Lages]

I can imagine that in some cases, "We have limited meeting time" might imply that the group loses access to their meeting hall at a given time. In such a case, where a time for adjournment has, in essence, been established by an outside force, is it still necessary for the organization to move to set the time to adjourn, or may the chair in this case declare the meeting adjourned when that time has arrived?

[Shmuel Gerber]

4 hours ago, Bruce Lages said:

I can imagine that in some cases, "We have limited meeting time" might imply that the group loses access to their meeting hall at a given time. In such a case, where a time for adjournment has, in essence, been established by an outside force, is it still necessary for the organization to move to set the time to adjourn, or may the chair in this case declare the meeting adjourned when that time has arrived?

The time for adjournment hasn't been set by an outside force; that is simply the time beyond which it will no longer be possible to meet in that place.

[Gary Novosielski]

3 minutes ago, Shmuel Gerber said:

The time for adjournment hasn't been set by an outside force; that is simply the time beyond which it will no longer be possible to meet in that place.

At which point the use of the motion to Fix the Bar to Which to Adjourn can be used. 

[Peter Bookman]

23 hours ago, Hieu H. Huynh said:

23 hours ago, Hieu H. Huynh said:

You may want to get the right book and see "Ordinary practice in adjourning" on p. 86 and "Cases where the assembly can adjourn without a motion" on pp. 240-241.

Also, the In Brief book may be of use.

See this link on adopting Robert's Rules.

Thank you. We have been discussing amending our by laws to apply Robert's Rules to the extent practicable. I have an older version which I did look at before posting here but quite honestly when I started reading about the adjournment rules I found myself confused by the references to various types of motions, principal, subsidiary, etc. It simply isn't going to work for us to go into that sort of depth, but I do appreciate the responses here, as I now have the basic outline of the adjournment process. I will recommend that the club buy the Brief Book or something similar, like Robert's Rules for Dummies.

[George Mervosh]

42 minutes ago, Peter Bookman said:

Thank you. We have been discussing amending our by laws to apply Robert's Rules to the extent practicable. I have an older version which I did look at before posting here but quite honestly when I started reading about the adjournment rules I found myself confused by the references to various types of motions, principal, subsidiary, etc. It simply isn't going to work for us to go into that sort of depth, but I do appreciate the responses here, as I now have the basic outline of the adjournment process. I will recommend that the club buy the Brief Book or something similar, like Robert's Rules for Dummies.

In Brief is not a parliamentary authority and neither is the Dummies book, and it is not even affiliated with the Robert's Rules Association.  Whose rules will you follow that will work for you?

[Richard Brown]

Agreeing with George Mervosh, RONR in Brief even says that it is not to be a considered a parliamentary authority and any organization that adopts it as such is actually adopting the full version of the current edition of RONR.   RONR in Brief gives you only the very basics of parliamentary..... and I do mean the very basics.  It is by no means suitable as a parliamentary authority.   You will more than likely quickly find that it is incapable of answering any sort of complicated or controversial questions.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

5 hours ago, Peter Bookman said:

It simply isn't going to work for us to go into that sort of depth.

A warning.

If you do not adopt a parliamentary authority, then you have 3 options:

(a.) obey the common parliamentary law. -- (This is more or less the mandatory default. You cannot get away from using parliamentary procedure, even if you reject 100% of the contents of the current edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised.)

(I am reminded of Bob Dylan's song: "Who are you going to serve?")

(b.) draft your own parliamentary rules. (This is real-old-school! Pre-1876!)

(c.) await the parliamentary pickle to pop up on its own schedule, and solve it on the fly. -- (I do not recommend #c, as this will stretch the length of one's meetings to ungodly hours.)