You are correct, Richard - historically, our organization has used the "business" meeting to perform our organization's business. The non-business meetings were originally intended, in my opinion, to be more social in nature.
In the recent past (several years), organizational leadership has opted to "call to order" on the second monthly meeting.
This year's administration does not want to "call to order" on the second meeting. They want to revert to the more social intent of the second meeting - open to the whole membership. The caveat is, that the administration want to be able to have off-the-cuff discussions, brainstorming sessions, etc, that are related to organization business.
As I write this, are we ok if we just don't call the meeting to order? Are we still aligned with our by-laws?
Does this make sense?
Again, thank you all for the insight!