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Refusal to Review Minutes


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No, but the reading and approval of the minutes can be postponed until later in the meeting.  If the meeting adjourns without having approved the minutes, they should be approved at the next meeting.  See RONR pages 354 and 474.

 

The president, acting alone, does not have the authority to do this.

 

We might be able to help you more if you can provide more detail as to just what happened and what the president's reason was for not allowing the minutes to be distributed, discussed or approved.

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I would love more help. The President stopped the minutes from being handed out and refused to consider them at the meeting. They were not specific as to the offending passages but referenced a decision which they made based on a parliamentary ruling t the prior meeting. I believe is the President's intent to attempt to rewrite history. They have regularly attempted to require prior approval of the minutes and requested substantive changes which do not reflect what happened during the meeting. I have explained numerous times that RRNR does not support approval of the assembly's minutes by the President or Executive Board. All prior minutes I have submitted to the assembly have been approved with no changes. While I suppose the President could now attempt a different ruling, that would be in the minutes of the next assembly meeting not the prior one and would not be retroactive.

 

By what part of RRNR does the President not have the authority to prevent minutes from being distributed or reviewed by the membership? Or is it simply that RRNR gives the President authority to do many things but interfering with the approval of minutes is not one of them?

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I would love more help. The President stopped the minutes from being handed out and refused to consider them at the meeting. They were not specific as to the offending passages but referenced a decision which they made based on a parliamentary ruling t the prior meeting. I believe is the President's intent to attempt to rewrite history. They have regularly attempted to require prior approval of the minutes and requested substantive changes which do not reflect what happened during the meeting.

 

Are you saying that your presidents from time to time have all been doing this, or that you have co-presidents, and they are both doing it?

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Are you saying that your presidents from time to time have all been doing this, or that you have co-presidents, and they are both doing it?

 

I think "they" might be serving as "he/she".

 

The President stopped the minutes from being handed out and refused to consider them at the meeting. They were not specific . . .

 

Would that English had a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun.

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You are correct that I was using "they" as a gender neutral pronoun since sex appears irrelevant to this issue.

Clarifying, this particular President has been attempting to pre-approve of minutes and rewrite history in minutes for most of their term of office. I did not mean to cast any such comment on prior Presidents who, as far as I know, did not make any such requests. I have only been Secretary under this particular President. We have only one President at a time.

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You are correct that I was using "they" as a gender neutral pronoun since sex appears irrelevant to this issue.

Clarifying, this particular President has been attempting to pre-approve of minutes and rewrite history in minutes for most of their term of office. I did not mean to cast any such comment on prior Presidents who, as far as I know, did not make any such requests. I have only been Secretary under this particular President. We have only one President at a time.

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[quote name="Edgar Guest" post="144254" timestamp="1433357994" 

And you confused Mr. Honemann (who, if I recall correctly, used to be identified as a Moderator).

My apologies for confusing anyone. This is a single President who has some unique leadership skills not typical of prior Presidents.

Has anyone got any guidance on the subject of this President refusing to allow the distribution of the minutes?

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Clarifying, this particular President has been attempting to pre-approve of minutes and rewrite history in minutes for most of their term of office. I did not mean to cast any such comment on prior Presidents who, as far as I know, did not make any such requests. I have only been Secretary under this particular President. We have only one President at a time.

The president has no business doing this and has no right to insist on seeing the draft minutes before anyone else.  The president may request to see the draft minutes in advance, but you (or whoever is secretary) may also refuse to grant the request. 

 

It is not unusual for the secretary to voluntarily submit a draft to the president or to consult with the president first in order to have the minutes as accurate as possible before they are presented to the assembly for approval, but the president has no right to demand it.  And the secretary has no obligation to agree to the president's request (or demand) to change something.  Only the assembly can do that with a majority vote.  (By assembly, I mean whatever group is meeting, whether the board, general membership, etc). 

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Has anyone got any guidance on the subject of this President refusing to allow the distribution of the minutes?

 

Since this latest incident is part of a pattern of behavior of "attempting to pre-approve of minutes and rewrite history in minutes," my guidance is to get a new President. See FAQ #20.

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Josh, we

Since this latest incident is part of a pattern of behavior of "attempting to pre-approve of minutes and rewrite history in minutes," my guidance is to get a new President. See FAQ #20.

We are working on it. Our President is disputing the election that happened during the last meeting at which minutes were not allowed to be distributed..

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A woman President daring"? Next thing you know those uppidy women will want the right to vote! :-) I hear many countries have had woman Prime Ministers and the USA even has a leading candidate for President who is a very competent woman.

I appreciate all of your advise and support. Thank you. I will investigate pgs. 650-653. I am beginning to think that the money I spent on getting an electronic version of RONR was some of the best I ever allocated. I hope the next version will be available for download online.

Our President is most definitely not going quietly. I expect that when the election goes against them they will appeal. Luckily our parent body has many RONR experts and lawyers, however they are only as good as the testimony we provide. I enjoyed paraphrasing a number of you with respect to demanding rewrites of minutes. I imagine that will provide some "amusement".

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A woman President daring"? Next thing you know those uppidy women will want the right to vote! :-) I hear many countries have had woman Prime Ministers and the USA even has a leading candidate for President who is a very competent woman.

 

I wonder if she wants to be referred to as "they". I doubt it. It seems to imply that she's getting a little heavy.

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Our President is most definitely not going quietly. I expect that when the election goes against them they will appeal.

 

And just so Mr. Honemann isn't confused again, by "them" and "they" you mean either "her" and "she" or "him" and "he", right?

 

Secretary, please understand that here on this board we deal with individual officers (and individual members) who are usually referred to as "he, him, his or she, her or hers".  We also refer to members... plural.... who are referred to as "they".

 

When you refer so a single individual as "they", it is very confusing and we don't know if you are suddenly talking about your board or membership (or some other group of people).   We don't know who "they"  are.... and it is usually plural... more than one person.  You have no idea how often we have to ask, "Who is "they?".  (Or, "Who are they?).

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