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Bruce Lages

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  1. Can you clarify what you are referring to as a 'quorum vote'?
  2. This seems to be addressed, at least for ASPA, in 48:15: "In such a case the content of the original minutes must not be altered, although it may be advisable for the secretary to make a marginal notation indicating the corrected text or referring to the minutes of the meeting at which the correction was adopted."
  3. Well, no, you can't 'vote on assessing the member at the next business meeting.' If the national organization's rules stipulate that alumna members are no longer responsible for dues or any national or chapter payments - and you already seem to have an opinion from your own parliamentarian that this means the member is not required to pay the assessment - then I think the only thing you can still do is ask the national organization parliamentarian to either confirm or refute your parliamentarian's opinion. If the national parliamentarian concurs with your parliamentarian, then that should settle the matter.
  4. Not unless your bylaws or other rules require it or a motion to vote on the matter by ballot is adopted (majority vote required).
  5. By itself, that statement would not grant the president the right to vote at board meetings, or even make him a member of the board. But there should be a separate statement in your bylaws that defines the composition and the powers of the board. You need to check that statement to see if your president is a voting member of the board. I would say that it is very likely that your president is a voting member of the board, since that is a very common situation is most, if not all, ordinary societies, and that in addition, he is also likely to be designated as the chair of the board.
  6. And note that it is only the names of makers of main motions that should be included in the minutes: "The name of the maker of a main motion should be entered in the minutes, but the name of the seconder should not be entered unless ordered by the assembly" (RONR, 12th ed. 48:5, 1).
  7. RONR does not require an agenda in the sense of a detailed listing of all topics that are expected to come before the meeting, but it does prescribe a standard order of business that can, and should, be used by most ordinary societies that meet at least on a quarterly schedule. See RONR, 12th ed. §41;5-36 for a detailed explanation of the standard order of business and its individual components. But since you refer to a meeting of your township, you are very likely not considered an 'ordinary society' in the sense RONR uses that term, and are very likely subject to local and state statutes that govern how your meetings are to be held. Those requirements may well include whether an agenda is or is not necessary for your meetings, and whether such an agenda, if necessary, needs to be publicized in advance of each meeting. You should check with your town attorney and/or your secretary of state for any applicable legal requirements.
  8. A recommendation coming from a committee requires a motion if the recommendation is to be acted upon, but it is only the second to the motion that is not needed if the committee was composed of more than one member. I presume it is the vote on the committee recommendation that you are referring to. Generally, a recommendation from a committee is a suggestion that the parent assembly take action of some kind, and that is presented as a motion, usually made by the reporting member of the committee.
  9. You do both. The correction (described in RONR as an amendment) should be made to the draft copy of the November minutes, which will now become the approved version of those minutes. And in the December minutes it should be noted that the November minutes were approved as amended. Section 48:1-15 in RONR will give you everything you need to know regarding the taking and approval of minutes.
  10. Nominations are indeed debatable, and nothing in RONR would preclude the nominees themselves from participating in that debate. See RONR, 12th ed. 46:27-29 for what is said about debate on nominations.
  11. How many different named entities do you need to reference in your constitution, and what is their relationship to each other? I wouldn't think the need to provide initialisms is a common or typical issue for most organizations in writing their governing documents. Is this some kind of umbrella organization that encompasses multiple sub-units with different names?
  12. Given that your election is already at least a month late, and that you may, depending on the wording of their term of office in the bylaws, now be without any officers, I would strongly suggest that you conduct your nominations and election together at the January meeting, if that is still possible. RONR describes in detail how to hold nominations and elections at the same time (46:6,7,19,21).
  13. The suggested wording for adopting RONR as your parliamentary authority is : "The rules contained in the current edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised shall govern the society in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with these bylaws and any special rules of order the Society may adopt" (RONR, 12th ed., 56:66). I would recommend that you use that exact wording, although you can certainly substitute your organization's name for the word 'Society'. With the inclusion of that wording, my response above stands as to your question about the bylaw wording concerning your voting rules. You probably should check the rest of your proposed revision to see if there are any other instances where you can eliminate wording that is repeating rules that are already spelled out in RONR.
  14. First question - do your current bylaws reference RONR as your parliamentary authority? If they do, then as to your question, all of the items that you 'do not state at each entry' are specifically stated in RONR and therefore do not need to be stated in your bylaws at all. What you want to include in your bylaws are the situations where your organization wants to follow a different prescription from that in RONR, such as that in A.1 in your Article 5. Repeating in your bylaws the rules set out in RONR is not a good idea because of the risk of creating conflicts in wording. If you do not currently have RONR specified in your bylaws, it is highly recommended that you add it as part of your revision.
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