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Gary Novosielski

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Everything posted by Gary Novosielski

  1. 1. No, the time window for using Reconsider is long closed. The board erred in placing the ad. A board is subordinate to the membership, and may not take any action which conflicts with a decision of the membership, which was not to place the ad. The membership may Ratify the action of the board members if it wishes, but they are under no obligation to do so. They may also adopt a motion of Censure to express their displeasure to the officers. 2. The report of the Nominating Committee is not the final event of the nominating process. The way you get nominations from the floor at the April meeting is simple: reopen nominations at the April meeting. If anyone objects, assume the motion to Reopen and take a vote—majority required.
  2. I think I'll just ask if you have a question about Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised.
  3. You can either Rescind it, or use Amend Something Previously Adopted to amend it. These motions are discussed in §35 of RONR 12th edition. What does this have to do with Appealing from the Decision of the Chair?
  4. Under what theory do you classify a special convention as a special meeting?
  5. The rules for amending bylaws are usually found in the bylaws—in this case, your old bylaws. If those rules were followed, then the "modern" bylaws are valid. But it doesn't matter how many active members you have, it matters how many members you have. The membership, and not the board, votes on bylaws. And I have no clue what quorum requirements you have. If the old bylaws have not been followed, then have the rules on amending the bylaws also not been followed? Based on what you've said, I could only guess what your situation is now. It doesn't seem good.
  6. Well, I agree, the use of "them" to mean "he-or-she" grates on my ears, since, as a person of a certain age, I learned in grade school that if you're speaking of an individual of unknown gender, you say "he". Somehow that turned from a simple rule of English grammar into a conspiracy theory. The irony is that English, when compared with many languages, is remarkably gender-free. Some have gendered treatment for most nouns, and most of those choices make no sense. Fortunately, I often have bigger problems to worry about. 🙂
  7. Well, it sounds like your interpretation is reasonable.
  8. For all things of any kind, there exists a move afoot to insist on that thing—and another to abolish it.
  9. I think the motion was germane to the question of "what bylaws shall be followed?"
  10. Well, that's still confusing, but it's clear that the substitute did not simply negate the original motion, and so shouldn't have been ruled out of order. But from what you said, the substitute language was subsequently voted on separately and adopted, so that would seem to be that. In any case, there's no continuing breach, so no point of order would be timely any more. Other than academic interest, do you have an actual question at this point on how to proceed?
  11. Well, it's called Elections and terms of office but it doesn't say anything about the terms of office? How do you know when the terms expire?
  12. It's difficult to make sense of that poorly crafted language. A two-thirds vote is mathematically greater than a majority vote, so "two-thirds majority" is contradictory. Correcting for that, we have, "a two-thirds vote of the entire Officers." Normally a "two-thirds vote" has a defined meaning: two-thirds of those present and voting. Normally, "of the <particular body>" describes in which body the vote must occur. But this contains the word "entire" which is normally used in a phrase like "a vote of two-thirds of the entire <body>." And that would clearly mean all the members whether present or not. But that's not the language we find in your bylaws. (I'm not sure Officers describes a deliberative assembly, but that's another matter.) So with these descriptions, perhaps your assembly will be able to find an interpretation of your language that a majority can agree with. And one last point, since the meaning of two-thirds is well understood, the use of the parenthetical (2/3) seems to serve no purpose, except to sound legal-ish. Edited to add: For a normal two thirds vote, the vote succeeds if there are twice as many Yes votes as No votes. Abstentions do not count. For two thirds of the entire membership, the vote succeeds if the Yes votes are at least two thirds of the total membership of the body. Abstentions still don't count, No votes don't count, and absences don't count. All that matters are the number of Yes votes and the number of members. There is also a type of vote: two-thirds of those present, but that seems nothing like what you've quoted.
  13. Would I be correct in thinking that the question involves the suspensibility of notice requirements if all members are present? If so then I agree quorum requirements are not at issue. And I agree that the absence of a single member could prevent the introduction of business that was not described in the call of the meeting.
  14. Walking out is allowed. but unless your board has a 100% quorum requirement, I don't see how it could stop business. It's one thing to post a message saying "only if the full board is present" and it's another thing to have the authority to enforce it. Any board member could raise a point of order that the quorum requirement cannot be suspended, even by a unanimous vote.
  15. Was the ruling correct? If so, where can I find the cite for it? After the committee motion failed, the “expert” was given first priority to make his motion to amend the existing bylaws, which passed. That is not a quote from RONR. There is nothing called a Substitute Motion in RONR. Substitute is a form of amendment. The text of 12:22(2), which refers to motions amendments that are not in order, says: 2) One that merely makes the adoption of the amended question equivalent to a rejection of the original motion. Thus, in the motion that “our delegates be instructed to vote in favor of the increase in Federation dues,” an amendment to insert “not” before “be” is not in order because an affirmative vote on not giving a certain instruction is identical with a negative vote on giving the same instruction. But it would be in order to move to insert “not” before “to” (“instructed not to vote in favor”), since this would change the main motion into one to give different instructions. As you can see, an amendment that reverses the sense of the original motion is very much in order. What is not in order is an amendment that would simply cancel the original, having the same effect as if it was voted down. So the answer to your question depends on exactly what the substitute said. From your description it seems like it was a substantial change that would do more than simply defeat the motion, but rather adopt a different set of bylaws, and that would have been be in order. But at this point it does not look like a point of order would be timely, at least not on that basis. But since the substitute motion was ultimately passed as a separate motion, I'm not sure I see how it makes a difference.
  16. No. That would defeat the purpose of the rule. Any vote that does not satisfy the notice requirement would be null and void.
  17. Well, yes, the assembly can instruct the Committee of the Whole on the limits of debate, i.e., in the motion to resolve into CotW.
  18. Not always. Sometimes the bylaws specify a ballot vote, for example when voting in elections. What are you voting on? Normally the method of voting can be agreed on informally, but if you want a ballot vote on a particular question you can move to hold the vote by ballot. The motion needs a second, is not debatable, and requires a majority vote for adoption.
  19. Well, I presume he's not making these accusations during a meeting, because that would be a severe violation of decorum, and the chair should nip that in the bud. And I think that's you. Unless he's moving to establish a disciplinary committee to formally investigate the Treasurer, his remarks are out of order. And even if he is, that motion cannot make accusations--in fact it's probably not in order during a board meeting at all, since it's usually a power of the membership. See Chapter XX of RONR, and your bylaws. If he's slandering board members, that's a civil offense, and he might need a lawyer letter, as a first step, to identify to him the error of his ways.
  20. This question depends on your bylaws. RONR does not define active or inactive members. It only defines members or non-members. If your bylaws don't say what "active" means, then they should be amended to remove the ambiguity. You say "other than paying dues"--do your bylaws actually say that you must pay your dues to be "active," or are you assuming that? Similarly, "in good standing" is defined in RONR as any member whose rights are not suspended due to discipline, or some automatic suspension for some reason outlined in your bylaws. Dues do not figure into this unless your bylaws say they do. What do your bylaws say about these things?
  21. No, that's baloney. Check your bylaws for an article near the back about how the bylaws can be amended. Those are the rules you have to follow. A typical rule might say that the proposed bylaw change must be sent to all members a certain time in advance, so they will know what the change is and when they would have to show up to debate or vote on it. And it typically requires a two-thirds vote to pass an amendment. Let us know what you find. And by the way, it should not be necessary to change the bylaws to match how you actually run things, because with few exceptions, you do not have the option to run things differently than the current bylaws permit. If there's a difference between the two, then you must change the way you currently run things to match the bylaws, until you can properly change them according to the rules.
  22. They're your bylaws which means your assembly will have to interpret them. I don't see anything in that quote to support the notion that a person could not nominate a candidate for office, at least prior to the thirty-day automatic loss of privileges. After that it depends on whether you consider the right to nominate a candidate to actually be a privilege. Apparently the authors use the words right and privilege as synonyms. The way you interpret this is to have that allegedly not-in-good-standing member make a nomination from the floor at the membership meeting. If the chair rules that he may not nominate anyone (or rules that he may, perhaps after a Point of Order [RONR (12th ed.) §23]), have someone who disagrees move to Appeal from the Decision of the Chair [RONR (12th ed.) §24]. And have someone else second it. This places the matter before the assembly. Limited debate will follow, at which the different interpretations will be argued. A majority vote is required to override the decision of the chair. Whatever the result, that becomes the interpretation of that bylaw, and the rationale is entered in the minutes and becomes precedent.
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