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Agenda vs Minutes


BarryA

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If the board has the authority to establish the new policy and if it did in fact establish a new policy, then the policy is in effect regardless of whether it was noted in the minutes. The minutes should be corrected to reflect the adoption of the new policy.

The general body should not be adopting the same policy adopted by the board. If it is on the agenda, it should be removed. If a member moves on the agenda item anyway, the chair should rule it out of order as such a policy has already been enacted by the board.

Unless your rules provide otherwise, the general assembly does have the right to rescind or amend a policy adopted by the board, but it must follow the procedure for amending or rescinding something previously adopted.

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7 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

...the policy is in effect regardless of whether it was noted in the minutes.

How does this make sense? If the minutes don't show a vote to create policy, how can the members even know it exists? Are people supposed to just trust that something happened if they don't bother to include it in the minutes?

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52 minutes ago, Guest James said:

How does this make sense? If the minutes don't show a vote to create policy, how can the members even know it exists? Are people supposed to just trust that something happened if they don't bother to include it in the minutes?

Answering in the order of your 3 questions:

The adoption is what matters, not the non-recording of the fact of the adoption. 

They can't, of course.  How did YOU learn about the policy?

Yup, and the members should insist that the Board minutes be corrected to show the (newly-?) adopted policy.

 

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I agree with James, at least to a certain extent.

When a motion is adopted, then, as Dr. Stackpole says, its adoption is what matters and it goes into effect immediately. However, when the minutes of a meeting are approved, those minutes become the official record of what actually happened at that meeting, and if they do not reflect the adoption of a particular main motion, the assembly has agreed that no such motion was adopted at that meeting. If the assembly has made a mistake in this regard, it can, at any time, recognize its mistake and correct its previously approved but erroneous record of what happened at the meeting, but if it fails to do so the presumption must be that the minutes as approved are correct.

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Tthe secretary wrote the minutes of the previous meeting the night before the meeting at which the minutes were to be approved and that meeting occurs more than three months later (shouldn't have, but things happen)  and the secretary realized her error, showed the motion to the affected parties immediately following the meeting was adjourned. Too late to call the meeting back to order.  It seems to me that the fact that the motion was adopted and was in effect that it would take a motion to rescind something previously adopted, even though the minutes were approved and even the member who made the motion didn't realize that it was made at the immediately previous meeting but did in fact quote the motion he made during the present meeting.  It seems to me that I better have a recording of all the meetings I attend, which are many.  

As I understand Mr. Honemann, if the president or even a board doesn't like an adopted motion they could tell the secretary not to record the motion (many secretaries would oblige)  and it would have the effect of rescinding the motion without a motion to rescind something previously adopted unless of course someone remembers and corrects the minutes later with a motion to amend something previously adopted.   A special meeting to correct minutes is impracticable because the members are scattered state wide and the issue will be mute by the next scheduled meeting.  The member now realizing that the motion was made at the previous meeting will make the motion to amend something previously adopted to correct those minutes.     

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I agree with Mr. Honemann that the presumption must be that the minutes are correct, but a presumption is rebuttable. If there is evidence that contradicts the minutes, and indicates that a motion was indeed passed, then that evidence supersedes the minutes. Incorrect minutes are not a back door to reversing the decision duly made. Any officer who deliberately tries to do so, or who carries on insisting that the minutes are a more true record of what happened than the actual happenings, should probably be subject to discipline.

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Alexis,thank you and Henry M. Robert for your answers.  Page 499, Question # 248 of Parliamentary Law pretty well cleared up the issue when the answer to the question, in part, reads: "A resolution or order is just as much in force whether recorded or not."  As parliamentarian for an organization that leaves out of minutes that should be in the minutes such as main motions, Parliamentary Law really cleared up the question for me.  I just couldn't believe that the motion would be mute because the secretary didn't record it.   

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11 hours ago, TREBOR said:

As I understand Mr. Honemann, if the president or even a board doesn't like an adopted motion they could tell the secretary not to record the motion (many secretaries would oblige)  and it would have the effect of rescinding the motion without a motion to rescind something previously adopted unless of course someone remembers and corrects the minutes later with a motion to amend something previously adopted.  

I said no such thing.

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7 hours ago, TREBOR said:

Alexis,thank you and Henry M. Robert for your answers.  Page 499, Question # 248 of Parliamentary Law pretty well cleared up the issue when the answer to the question, in part, reads: "A resolution or order is just as much in force whether recorded or not."  As parliamentarian for an organization that leaves out of minutes that should be in the minutes such as main motions, Parliamentary Law really cleared up the question for me.  I just couldn't believe that the motion would be mute because the secretary didn't record it.   

I find the response to the question asked in Q&A 248 on page 499 very interesting.

It involves a different set of facts in that it refers to a motion, made when the minutes are pending for adoption, to deliberately strike from the minutes a resolution or order which was, in fact, adopted. In his response, General Robert says that such a motion is in order, but that it will take a two-thirds vote for its adoption since the rules require that the action which had been taken be included in the minutes. In other words, I gather he is saying that the rule which requires that the action which was taken be included in the minutes is a rule which can be suspended.

I'm not at all sure that I agree that the "rule" that minutes must truly reflect actions taken with respect to main motions is a rule which can be suspended, but I certainly do agree that if a main motion is, in fact, adopted, failure to include that fact in the minutes, whether such failure is deliberate or accidental, does not mean that it didn't happen. 

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