bylaw amendment notice

[Guest committeechair]

Current bylaws only stipulate that amendments need two-thirds approval.  There is no mention of an advance notice requirement.  The President stated that advance notice is required through Robert's Rules since the bylaws are silent.  A bylaw committee was formed at the last annual business meeting.  Is there any way the committee could present amendments for a vote by the assembly, if no amendments had been submitted prior to the annual business meeting?

[Richard Brown]

RONR requires previous notice of bylaw amendments only if your own bylaws are silent as to the method of amending them.  Since your bylaws do provide for the method of amending them, but make no mention of previous notice being required. the default provisions of RONR would not apply.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

12 hours ago, Guest committeechair said:

Current bylaws only stipulate that amendments need two-thirds approval.  

There is no mention of an advance notice requirement. 

The President stated that advance notice is required through Robert's Rules since the bylaws are silent.  

A bylaw committee was formed at the last annual business meeting.  

Is there any way the bylaws committee could present amendments for a vote by the assembly, if no amendments had been submitted prior to the annual business meeting?

>> Current bylaws only stipulate that amendments need two-thirds approval.  There is no mention of an advance notice requirement. 

kg: Then that is 100% of the requirement. -- The silence of your bylaw on the issue of previous notice is a statement that no previous notice is required.

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>> The President stated that advance notice is required through Robert's Rules since the bylaws are silent.  

kg: No.

Your president is in error.

Where the bylaws contain a method of amendment, that method of amendment is taken to be complete. You cannot ADD or SUBTRACT from whatever criteria your bylaws contain from any other source (not even your parliamentary authority).

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>> Is there any way the bylaws committee could present amendments for a vote by the assembly, if no amendments had been submitted prior to the annual business meeting?

kg: Yes.

You do not need "prior submissions."

All you need, per your own quote of your rule, is a two-thirds vote of some kind ("two-thirds approval" whatever that is). I will leave it up to you what pool of people comprise the two-thirds.

(e.g., "members present"? "members present and voting"? two-thirds of ballots cast? two-thirds of the entire membership?)