Jump to content
The Official RONR Q & A Forums

Quarterly Time Interval


Guest Victoria

Recommended Posts

My organization has a special rule stating that members may introduce new motions from the floor, and once the motion has been made and seconded, "it shall be laid on the table until the next regular meeting."

Our yearly schedule also includes a quarterly time interval. My question is: if a member introduces a new motion at the last meeting before the quarterly time interval, can it carry over to the first meeting after the quarterly time interval? Or would it need to be reintroduced in the first meeting and not addressed until the second?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with Mr. Huynh, but the general way of calculating a quarterly time interval is whether the next meeting will take place by the end of the third month after the preceding meeting.  If, for example, a meeting was on January 5, the next meeting will be within a quarterly time interval if it is held on or before April 30.   See pages 89-90 of RONR.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Guest Victoria said:

My organization has a special rule stating that members may introduce new motions from the floor, and once the motion has been made and seconded, "it shall be laid on the table until the next regular meeting."

Our yearly schedule also includes a quarterly time interval. My question is: if a member introduces a new motion at the last meeting before the quarterly time interval, can it carry over to the first meeting after the quarterly time interval? Or would it need to be reintroduced in the first meeting and not addressed until the second?

First of all, I would note that the effect of your rule appears to be that the motion is postponed until the next regular meeting, not laid on the table.

The general rule is that a motion may be postponed to the next meeting provided that the next meeting is within a quarterly interval, and that motions "fall to the ground" if more than a quarterly time interval passes between regular meetings. Your society's rules take precedence over the rules in RONR, however, so if your rule provides that motions made in New Business are postponed to the next regular meeting, and no exceptions are made, then I would think that the rule applies regardless of the time between meetings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Victoria H. said:

Thanks! That confirms what I thought. I'm glad to get an expert opinion because I am new to this.

Well, I'd feel a lot more comfortable about all this if you could explain what you meant by:

"Our yearly schedule also includes a quarterly time interval. My question is: if a member introduces a new motion at the last meeting before the quarterly time interval, can it carry over to the first meeting after the quarterly time interval? Or would it need to be reintroduced in the first meeting and not addressed until the second?"

Frankly, I find this rather confusing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm in academia, so we don't meet over the summer. Our last meeting of the academic year will be the first week of May, and then the group won't meet again until mid-September. If a member brings up an item of new business at the May meeting, can it be laid on the table/postponed until the September meeting? Or will the QTI require that it be reintroduced at the September meeting, and laid on the table/postponed until October?

To further complicate things, roughly half the membership turns over in the interval. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The quarterly time interval restriction in RONR would not allow a motion introduced in the first week of May to be postponed to a meeting in mid-September because that interval is greater than RONR's definition of a QTI.  However, as Mr, Martin noted above, if your rules say the motion is postponed to the next regular meeting, then that rule supercedes the QTI rule in RONR and the motion should be brought up at the September meeting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only technically proper way to assure that the "May Motion" will come up in September (more than a quarter in the future) would be to simply refer it to a committee, with the assignment to report the motion back to your group at the September meeting.  If you want things to sound good, ask the committee to prepare a recommendation as to what your group should do with the "May Motion".

As you have figured out, it is improper to postpone to a time that far ahead, (and a complete misuse of "Table" to use it to "postpone").

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Bruce Lages said:

The quarterly time interval restriction in RONR would not allow a motion introduced in the first week of May to be postponed to a meeting in mid-September because that interval is greater than RONR's definition of a QTI.  However, as Mr, Martin noted above, if your rules say the motion is postponed to the next regular meeting, then that rule supercedes the QTI rule in RONR and the motion should be brought up at the September meeting.

I agree.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/14/2017 at 3:55 PM, jstackpo said:

The only technically proper way to assure that the "May Motion" will come up in September (more than a quarter in the future) would be to simply refer it to a committee, with the assignment to report the motion back to your group at the September meeting.  If you want things to sound good, ask the committee to prepare a recommendation as to what your group should do with the "May Motion".

As you have figured out, it is improper to postpone to a time that far ahead, (and a complete misuse of "Table" to use it to "postpone").

I have to disagree - the group's own rules specifically state that the motion must be postponed until the next regular meeting.  If the next regular meeting following the May meeting is in September, then that is the 'next regular meeting', and the group's own rules supersede RONR.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...