Weldon Merritt

Well, to begin with, there are no "RONR police: to turn to, so short of litigation , your remedy is with the organization itself. But are you sure that the vacancies must be filled by the general membership? It certainly in not uncommon for a board of directors to be given the authority to fill vacancies occurring between general membership meetings, especially if the general membership meets infrequently. (You don't say how often the general membership of this organization meets.) Assuming that the bylaws indeed require vacancies to be filled by the general membership, you should raise a Point of Order at the next general membership meeting that the appointments by the board are null and void as being in violation of the bylaws. If the chair rules your point "not well taken" (as seems likely) you should then appeal from the chair's ruling. The appeal requires a second, so make sure another member is prepared to second it. It also would be prudent to make sure you have the backing of a lot of other members, because it takes a majority against the chair's ruling to overturn it. But if a majority is not willing to enforce the rules, there's not much you can do except maybe work to elect board members who will respect and follow the rules. I suppose litigation is an option if the issue is important enough to you, but that takes us well beyond the scope if this forum. You can find the rules governing appeals in RONR (12th ed.) 24:1-13.

Some years ago, I attended a presentation by Daniel Seabold in which he iterated what I call "Seabold's Axiom": "Say it once; say t clearly' and say it in the right place." (I'm not certain I have the three elements in the same order in which he stated them, but I believe they are equally important.) I try to always keep that axiom in mind when drafting governing documents. And that includes not repeating in your bylaws something that already is included in RONR.

Yes. Why would you think otherwise?

Tou are thinking about Principles of Interpretation 4 & 5: RONR 56:68.

Not at all! The parliamentarian advises the chair. The chair is the one who rules. And Dr. Kapur has given you the correct answer on how the chair should rule.

I don't see anything particularly complicated about censure. And I see no procedural impediments to later initiating formal disciplinary action on the same facts. These may be valid arguments to use in debate on the motion to censure, but they do not render it out of order.

I don't see how it could be. The acceptance of the resignations and the election of replacements cannot be valid until those actions are ratified. And they can't be ratified in the absence of a quorum. You can't rely on the (as yet) invalid actions to meet the quorum requirement.

And more specifically, to reemphasize the point, it won't stop "further questions on this topic." Only proper enforcement of the rules will do that.

"There is no limit to the number of times a member can speak to a debatable question. Appeals, however, are debatable under the regular rules—that is, each member (except the chair) can speak only once in debate on them, while the chair may speak twice." RONR (12th ed.) 49:21(3) (footnote omitted).

True, so far as RONR is concerned. But if Guest Tad P is talking about some sort of governmental board (as his reference to "the laws" might suggest), there may well be legal restrictions on what can occur in executive session. If so, that is beyond the scope of this forum.

I see nothing wrong with the attorney suggesting that a particular item be added. In fact, he might be derelict in his duties if he knows of something that the board should discuss and he doesn't alert them. But whether to actually add the item would be up to the board (or whatever process is in pace for doing so), unless some applicable rule allows the attorney to directly add the item.

As do I. I initially didn't distinguish between the fact of being the IPP (from which one logically could not resign) and any duties associated with the position (from which one could resign).

Thanks, Dan. I'm glad to get the straight poop! I wonder why Find a grave didn't include the other daughters.

Oops! Yes, I did.

I'd say the other sources are probably more accurate. I have found Find a Grave to sometimes not be completely accurate, based on listings for some of my own family members.

According to finaagrave.com, he had three. One died in infancy, or possibly was stillborn. (The listing just says "Infant of Henry M. and Helen M. Robert: and lists 1865 ad both the birth and death year.) The second was a daughter Corinne Robert Redgrave, and the third was a son, Henry Martyn Robert, Jr. Henry Jr. also had a son, Henry Martyn Robert III, who was one of the authors of the 7th through 12th editions. Henry III, who died in 21092019, had no children, so there is no longer anyone with the Robert name serving as an author. However, the General's heirs, through his daughter Corinne Redgrave, still carry on his legacy through the Robert's Rules Association, the officers of which are all members of the Redgrave family.

This assumes that a ballot vote is required. If the bylaws don't require a ballot vote, or if they specify that a ballot vote is required only if there are more candidates than position to be filled, then once the chair has called for nominations from the floor, and there are none, then the chair simply declares the candidate(s) elected without taking a vote. RONR 46:40. While this deprives the members of the ability to cast a write-in vote, if they really wanted to vote for someone else, they had the ability to nominate them. I will leave it to others to comment about the rest of your post.

I'm not sure it's that unusual. I have run across served a couple of organizations that have such a rule. But I agree that nothing we have been told shows that any such rule applies to Tomm's organization.

I hadn't thought of that, but I think you're right.

Yes, but there is no rule that requires the chair to pay attention to anything the parliamentarian says. Or at least it would be quite strange if there were.

It seems that we may not be getting our curiosity satisfied. But if the question is about the IPP resigning from the position of IPP, I will point out that it is logically impossible for that to happen, unless the organization has a very unorthodox definition of IPP. And if the question is about the IPP resigning from some other position, that may or may not be logically possible, depending on how the other position is defined. In any event, I share my colleagues' suspicion that whether the issue is, it relates to the many reasons why giving the IPP an official position is a bad idea.

I suppose they could be, if the assembly wants to perpetuate a falsehood. But I think you really mean, is it legitimate to do so? And the answer to that is a resounding "NO!" The minutes are supposed to be an accurate record of what actually happened at the meeting, not what should have happened or what the assembly wishes, in retrospect, had happened.

Not under the small board rules. "There is no limit to the number of times a member can speak to a debatable question." RONR (12 ed.) 49:21(3). Those rules don't address how long each speech may be, so I suppose the "10 minutes on each topic" rule still applies.

No! Why on earth would you think that it might be? So far as RONR is concerned, a member cannot yield his or her time to another member in the first place. (It is conceivable that your rules do, but I'd be surprised.) But if it happens anyway, and no one raises a Point of Order, it's not a continuing breach and carries no consequences.

I agree re appointment of a MAC. I was going to mention that, but since it wasn't directly relevant to the specifis question asked, I decided not to.