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1 hour ago, Jen Morningstar said:

only to prevent further comments that were not desireable.

And that tactic wouldn't work anyway.  A pending motion -- there was, I trust, a motion pending that the director was "commenting" on -- will come up automatically under "Unfinished Business" in the next meeting.  So you are not done with it.

Most bylaw provisions are not "suspendable" -- they can be amended, of course.

A generally small sub-set -- "rules of order" may be suspended.

What does your "entity" wish to suspend?

Lorleen:

Be careful what you wish for -- depending on what sort of organization you are in, emergencies can pop up between the time the agenda items are specified and the time of the meeting when emergency action could otherwise be taken.

Also, just WHO is going to decide what items go on the agenda?  Is there any mechanism for membership review before the agenda is concreteized? Can the agenda writer (the president, perhaps) exercise a veto of member's wishes?  Any appeal?  To whom?  How? 

Sure.   Any body or individual can propose a motion, setting policy, to the general membership.  The members are in charge.

7 minutes ago, Joshua Katz said:

Am I the only one missing the term limit in the paraphrase of the term of office?

Don't think so, but the exact bylaw provision might contain the magic "or until..." phrase which would keep the sitting president in office past is/her allotted two years.  So we should look at the bylaw provision before answering the OP's question definitively.

What do the bylaws say about the term in office?  Exact and complete quote of the bylaw provision, please.

Do you have time between now and the beginning of the nomination & election process to amend the bylaws to remove the two year term limit?

1 hour ago, Guest Mike W. said:

"All officers shall be elected by a majority vote at the annual meeting of the association and shall hold office for a specified period of time." " For the inaugural term of the new SLFFA Association the president will serve a 3 year term (2016 - 2018)." 

Who "specifies" what the term is to be after 2018?   

Given what you have told us so far, he, the person elected in 2016, is out of office.  Get cracking on a new election! ASAP.

New (or even repeat) questions deserve new threads.  We like 'em -- makes our stats look good.

Nothing in RONR would prevent the "removed" ex-president from running for the office again.  Any "legal" barriers would have to be a matter to discuss with a lawyer. Or amend your bylaws. (But be careful what you wish for and how you phrase an amendment.)

The rule would be adopted by the group that wants to hear what the deacon has to say.

I am presuming that a "session" is equivalent to a Board of Directors in a secular association.  

But for my own information, isn't a "Deacon" a member of the Board/Session?  And hence has a member's right to speak? Or is there another sub-group involved?

I suppose he could make it, but I suspect it might not get very far...

If someone else makes it, however, he shouldn't speak for it (if he has any sense at all), nor vote for it - page 407, line 21.

But as a member, he cannot be absolutely forbidden from doing so.

18 minutes ago, mjhmjh said:

Does this mean a member could give notice of an amendment the day of a meeting or the day before a meeting and still fulfill the notice requirement?

Well, the member could try, but I doubt that he/she would get away with it, because...

18 minutes ago, mjhmjh said:

Would another member be justified in raising a point of order against the consideration of such an amendment?

I would certainly raise such a point because of inadequate notice -- the day before is hardly a "reasonable" time in advance.  But the final decision would rest with the membership present, via the chair's ruling and an appeal to the membership  See pages 247 - 260.  Happy reading!

Oh, just go ahead and nominate yourself.  But call it "volunteering" as it sounds MUCH nicer described that way. 

17 minutes ago, Atul Kapur said:

They don't need the title.

But they don't get to vote either (or vote twice), on the Board, for example.  They can vote in their normal membership meetings, of course, and vote in the capacity of the office the person originally had.

IMO, since there is no prohibition against write-in votes on any of the ballots taken during second (and third... ) tries, they are always valid, legal votes.   RONR sez that write-ins are always allowed unless there is an express prohibition in the bylaws.   A provision allowing them in one situation is NOT a prohibition in another.

I'm on pins and needles.

24 minutes ago, Guest Mari said:

Just to be sure:  the motions made and passed by the board of directors cannot be changed in format when presented to the membership for the final vote. The motions must be published as written by the board of directors.  

Yes, but...   presuming the motions are in effect recommendations to the full membership for inclusion in your association's standing or special rules, the membership is free to make whatever amendments to the rules they are of a mind to (or other things, like referring them back to the Board for "improvements"), by majority vote, prior to adopting the motions in whole or in part.  That is, if your associations has no rules to the contrary.

If I was a member of your organization, I would be delighted.

A suggestion to Guest Marie (AKA "Yes...") :  Print, or combine electronically in a document, all your standing rules right along with your bylaws  (under separate sections or headings, of course) for ease of reference for all your members.  Life will be simpler in the future as a result.

Did anybody raise points of order as each rule infraction came along?  

If not, then the vote is valid and the motion was adopted, or defeated if that is the way the vote went.

I am afraid (or relieved, actually, 😊) that neither of these questions can be answered in RONR as they deal entirely with special rules adopted by your State Central Committee.

You'll have to get in touch with the State Committee for answers.

Your understanding is correct: the read out, not the written, motion is what goes in the minutes.  RONR, p. 469 & p. 44, line 22ff.

If the assembly is unhappy with the minute phrasing, they can amend the minutes next time.

1 hour ago, Guest CJ Webb said:

There is absolutely nothing written about this in our By-Laws in regards to a vote, disciplinary actions, removal process or anything else. 
Unfortunately there is nothing in our by-laws to revert back to. 

Eh?

21 minutes ago, Guest CJ Webb said:

A director may be removed when sufficient cause exists for such removal. The Board of Directors may entertain charges against any director. A director may be represented by counsel upon any removal hearing. The Board of Directors shall adopt such rules as it may in its discretion consider necessary for the best interest of the organization, for this hearing. 

Assuming the second quote is from your (CJ's) bylaws, that doesn't look like "nothing written". 

Since you  have some "removal" rules, the question of the director getting to vote on his/her own removal is a rule for you to decide upon.

Not that I know of.  A sort of ad hoc "standard" might be Micro$oft's Track Changes (AKA "redline") system. 

I, professionally, review a fair number of bylaw amendment texts and it is very easy to spot any embedded changes with that system.  (This is not a commercial.)

Clearly, in you other thread,  Dean Don Dan has it right -- no motions in the "I&I" portion of the meeting.

However, unless your group has some very unusual provisions, you can introduce and make your "Budget Process" motion in "New Business"  --  that is what the heading is for.