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wfd086

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  1. A question arose during our annual election of officers last night. We have the following offices that are filled every year - Captain, 1st Lieutenant, 2nd Lieutenant, Secretary/Treasurer, and a 5 member Executive board. A question arose as to whether one person can hold one of the positions as well as serve on the Executive Board. There is no prohibition written in our By-Laws on it and I could not find anything either way in Robert's Rules. Thanks
  2. Our by-laws read the following on amendments: These by-laws may be amended by an affirmative vote of two-thirds (2/3) of the active membership, present and voting, and only after an electronic notice has been transmitted to all members by the secretary at least sixty (60) days prior to the amendment action. Any rules or orders not specifically covered by these By-Laws shall be governed by Roberts Rules of Order, most recent edition. Our association meets quarterly. My question is. If a by-law amendment is sent to the secretary between meetings and an electronic notice is sent to the membership sixty days or more prior to the next meeting, can that amendment be adopted at the next meeting or does it have to be introduced at a meeting?
  3. There have been a few times in one of the organizations I belong to where we did not have a quorum at the time that a meeting was scheduled by the by-laws to start. I have a couple questions on this. When these instances have arrived we simply didn't even call the meeting to order. My first question is, should the meeting be called to order even though we do not have a quorum? My second question is, since our by-laws state a time for the meeting is the meeting required to start at that time or does that basically mean that the meeting cannot start before the set time? I have put the text of the by-law below. The regular meetings of this Company shall be on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month at 7:00 pm, except when the same falls on a legal holiday. Then said meeting will fall on the following night.
  4. So what we ended up doing was defeating all 4 amendments and submitting a new amendment to just change the time of the meeting. In order to adopt a By-Law amendment a motion to adopt with a second is required to proceed with a vote unless they were submitted by a committee, correct? After the 1st amendment was defeated there was no motion or second to move forward with the other 3. Was that done correctly? I know we had always done amendments incorrectly in the past where they were just submitted and voted on after being read three times.
  5. A By-Law amendment was submitted in our organization to change quite a few things. I have attached the text of the amendment that was presented. An amendment requires a 3/4 majority per our By-Laws. The only thing that I believe most of us will agree on is the change of the meeting time from 7:30 pm to 7:00 pm. Is there a way to strip everything else out of it and keep just the time change? Cyclone Proposed ByLaw Changes (Summary) - v1.1.docx
  6. I am the Secretary for our organization. I was contacted by our Captain (President) this evening and he asked me to send an email to the membership to cancel our monthly meeting because of the Coronavirus since the majority of our members are seniors. Our state (RI) is currently in a declared state of emergency. Our By-laws call for our meeting to be held on the 3rd Wednesday of every month. we require a quorum of seven members including one of the three leading officers. There is nothing in the By-laws about cancelling a meeting however they do allow us to change the time of a meeting with a 2/3 vote of the members present at a meeting. My question is can we just cancel a meeting at the direction of the Captain?
  7. In my organization according to our By-Laws, once you complete 25 years you are a Life Member. There was a discussion about making someone who has not yet reached 25 years a life member. A number of our members were asked if they would support it, my reply was no and I stated that the By-Laws were very specific about Life Membership. There was then a comment about suspending the rules, which I do not believe is a possibilty. There is no where in our by-laws that mentions suspending any rules. The text from our By-laws on life membership is as follows: Section 3 – Life Members – A member having completed twenty five (25) years of faithful service shall be awarded a twenty five-year service pin, and automatically become a Life Member. Life Members shall be excused from attending all meetings, fires, and drills, but shall retain all the privileges of active members, including the use of the uniform. I believe that what I am looking for is in RONR on page 263 where it states "Rules contained in the bylaws (or constitution) cannot be suspended - no matter how large the vote in favor of doing so or how inconvenient the rule in question may be - unless the particular specifically provides for its own suspension,or unless the rule properly is in the nature of a rule of order as described on page 17, lines 22-25." Am I correct when I say we cannot suspend the rules to do what is being talked about?
  8. I belong to 2 organizations the first has a line in the By-Laws that a motion to adjourn is always in order, the second does not. In the second would a motion to adjourn also always be in order even though it is not stated in the By-Laws? Adjournment is not listed in the order of business for the meetings.
  9. I am trying to convince an organization that we should be emailing the minutes of our meetings to all our members in advance so we can get away from the process of reading and approving the minutes that we currently use. Would we need to amend our by-laws to allow the minutes to be sent out or can we just start sending them to the membership?
  10. Does anyone know if they plan on releasing an ebook that can be used on say a kindle or other electronic reader? I know they have a windows version available for windows PC's.
  11. We are scheduled by our By-Laws to meet on the 2nd & 4th Thursday of each month. There is no mechanism in our By-Laws for cancelling a meeting, the only provision for not having a meeting is if it falls on a holiday then it falls to the next day. We are in the middle of a blizzard right now can our president just cancel the meeting because he doesn't feel like going out? I told him he can't just cancel a meeting he doesn't have that authority anywhere in our By-Laws. Below is the text of our By-Laws: The regular meetings of this Company shall be on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month at 7:30 pm, except when the same falls on a legal holiday. Then said meeting will fall on the following night.
  12. Thank you for your help on this as well as the other questions I have had so far. I am the Secretary for 3 different organizations and am trying to get them all to where the minutes are sent out in advance & I don't have to read them. So I am guessing something like the minutes of the last meeting were approved or the minutes of the last meeting were approved as corrected will work in cases where I don't actually read the minutes. Thanks again.
  13. Prior to our last meeting I sent out the minutes to all of our members. Following the prescribed procedure in the 11th edition on pg 354 lines 9-23 the minutes were approved. When writing up the minutes what would be the proper wording for approval of the minutes when they were not actually read at the meeting? Should it still be worded "The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved."?
  14. I ordered and received my copy of the 11th edition. I have also got an amendment ready to go for our next meeting to get us up to the current version. Where the ineligible candidates are concerned if I am reading correctly someone will need to make a point of order on the violation. Our order of business is as follows: Roll Call. Reading of the minutes of the last regular or special meeting. Reports of officers. Reports of committees. Nominations of officers or candidates for membership. Bills and communications. New business. Elections of officers and or members. Remarks for the good of the company. Collection of the kitty. 2nd Roll call.
  15. Our By-Laws read to amend the By-Laws: Proposed amendments shall be signed and submitted in writing at a regular meeting of the general membership. All By-Laws or amendments to existing By-Laws shall be voted on by ballot no sooner than the next regular meeting. Two-thirds (2/3's) of the votes cast shall be necessary for acceptance. Once an amendment has been submitted is a motion required to adopt the amendment or would a vote be automatic? As long as I have been a member anytime an amendment was proposed it was just voted on at the next meeting with no motion, is that proper or have we been doing it wrong all along?
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