Paula

"ARTICLE XIII: Resignations Section 1: All resignations shall be presented in writing to the Secretary and referred by the Secretary to the Board of Trustees. Section 2: At the discretion of the Finance Committee, no resignation shall release the member’s indebtedness to the Congregation for dues, donations, supplies, charges, Building Fund, assessments, or any other financial obligation." That is the full text. Looks like we don't have much of a choice if she decides to rescind, but then again nobody has ever resigned twice during an Annual Meeting.

I did not have to "place it before the assembly" because it happened during the assembly of the members of the congregation. It was not a separate item. She also did it while a motion was already in place and being debated, so it was not presented as a separate vote. The congregation is of the understanding that she has resigned. It's in the Minutes that she resigned. She did not clarify that the resignation was conditional during the meeting, she rescinded after a personal phone call where I asked what she was thinking, resigning during an Annual Meeting and before any kind of vote was taken that she may not have liked. In other words, she jumped the gun, but the congregation believes there are now four openings and not three. We're a small congregation and have not held strictly to RR. Obviously, to our detriment. I just think it's going to be embarrassing when she shows back up on the board after having resigning in front of so many members of the congregation, and the entire Board. She certainly added to the embarrassment and the emotions of the moment, which included some F-bombs between members.

During our Annual Meeting, we were to elect three trustees to office for three open positions. A nomination from the floor was put forth for a fourth candidate to the Board position. This was unexpected and no notification of any kind had been given. However, we had changed our Bylaws because of this exact scenario some years before that got really nasty and had repercussions for years, and while we were looking it up in the Bylaws (we got rid of nominations from the floor), a current Board member - who did not like the fourth candidate - verbally resigned her position "I am resigning from the Board for personal reasons." She did this twice, in front of 36 other people, even though we had not even voted. Now, she's saying that her resignation was conditional, i.e. she only wanted to resign if the person she didn't like got voted onto the Board. However, that's not what she said during the meeting, and the impression from the congregation is that she has resigned. We wound up with "no vote" because the Nominations Committee didn't get the notifications out in time anyway, so the entire slate was not according to the Bylaws. My question: Since she did this in front of the members - twice - is she now resigned? Can she now come back and say "Oops, I really didn't mean it"? Our Bylaws state that resignations (it doesn't specify either Board or Membership) should be in writing to the Secretary. However, Board members have previously resigned verbally with nothing in writing. Thanks for any help in unwinding this mess, and yes, we'll ALL know the Bylaws next time and going forward.