Board members exceeded term limits

[Wikras]

I am new on a board with 13 Directors. 8 of those members, including the President, are on the Board in violation of the term limits of our bylaws, but refuse to step down. The President boasted they have been ignoring the bylaws for decades. Tried to bring the issue to the members at the annual meeting, but President would not allow discussion, and called nomination of Directors to vote without allowing for nominations from the floor. What can I do?

[jstackpo]

Resign from membership, if feasible.

[Richard Brown]

There are things you can do, but there is no Magic Bullet. The remedies that you have available require you and at least one or two others to have a decent working knowledge of Robert's Rules of Order when it comes to dealing with this type of situation and an uncooperative presiding officer.

You probably can't do it alone. It is going to take several members to stand up and refuse to accept this type of behavior

[SaintCad]

First step would be to educate the members on RONR so they know what they can do.

What are your board rules on a quorum?  Could you conceivably run a meeting with only the 5 members that are properly on the Board?

Would it be improper to send a message to the membership pointing out the violations and at the next AM prepare them to raise Points of Order galore (with Appeal naturally)?

[Wikras]

Minimum quorum size is five. Trouble is, this is a non-profit lake association. Most members are up here seasonally, and now that a challenge has been brought at the last AM, the Presiding officer is planning to conduct special meetings when those who raised the issue cannot attend, in order to pack it with their supporters to get the bylaws changed. If the members decide to change the bylaws, it should be done when most can attend, and not under the Presiding of Directors with a conflict of interest. As is, most are ignorant to the bylaws because in the history of the association, they have never been made available to the members, and have only been given to the directors last year after I requested then after discovering a major undertaking the association is claiming to undertake, is actually being done by someone else. I know, get off the board ... but they have destroyed this lake I love over the past 20 years and as frustrating as it is, I am making progress in getting changes to clean it up, but we have a time table and several on the board don't care about long term effects, just selling their houses at a good price and leaving the future mess to someone else.