Bruce Lages

RONR doesn't address what happens prior to a meeting, so there's no issue there, but if by "at the beginning of the meeting" you mean after the meeting has been called to order, that would indeed be problematic. You would need the permission of the assembly, which I suspect might not be granted.

Amend Something Previously Adopted - but the motion that was adopted, and subsequently subject to amendment, was an implied motion to approve the minutes.

I don't think anyone here is going to be able to help very much, as this is not really a parliamentary question. It seems to me that your church will have to decide whether a "week" starts on Sunday or Monday. Now that you've seen this issue come up, perhaps it's time to amend the bylaws to include less ambiguous language.

Once this amendment was adopted by the membership, the only way to change it back to the pre-amended language is by another bylaw amendment, following whatever procedure your bylaws specify for their amendment. Bylaw amendments, once adopted, can not be rescinded by a simple motion to rescind.

You are misreading what RONR says about ex-officio members of committees and boards. "If the ex-officio member is not under the authority of the society, he has all the rights and privileges of board membership, including the right to make motions and to vote, but none of the obligations..." (11th ed. p. 483, ll.30-33). The only difference between such an ex-officio member and the other members is that the ex-officio member should not be counted in determining the number required for a quorum (p.483, l.35- p. 484, l.3) However, as Mr. Katz points out, it isn't really clear that your council-appointed member fits RONR's definition of an ex-officio member not under the authority of the society. You should heed his advice and check your local ordinances and policies to see what this member's status is.

I think what the OP's organization can not do without a specific bylaw provision is to disenfranchise the absentee voters by deciding to exclude them from any run-off election. It is not sufficient that "Our bylaws do not specify that the absentee ballots be counted in the run-off election". The bylaws must specifically state that absentee ballots will be excluded from a run-off election, otherwise any run-off would have to provide the opportunity for eligible voters to cast an absentee ballot.

Just to be clear, it is not everyone (of the committee members) who has to agree. As Dr. Stackpole pointed out above, it is a majority of the committee members - unless you have a specific rule requiring a different threshold for deciding motions.

Guest Denise's original post suggests that the house committee chairmanship is a board position. If there is a vice chair position, certainly that person could take over chairing the committee, but I think whether the vice chair becomes the new official chair of the committee (and apparently a board member) may depend on how such a vice chair position is defined in their rules. In my experience, very few ordinary societies have officially-defined vice chair positions for their committees.

If, in fact, you have no bylaw procedure for filling a vacancy in office, then you would hold a special election for the office as described above. Do your bylaws provide for holding special meetings?

Assuming the person elected as house chairman did not immediately decline the position, you now have a vacancy in that position. First check your bylaws to see if they describe a vacancy-filling procedure. Often such procedures will stipulate that the president, or the board has the authority to appoint someone to the position, typically for the remainder of the original term. If you do not have such a procedure, a special election should be held to fill the vacancy, by the same body that did the electing originally. This should be done as soon as possible, including calling a special meeting for this purpose if your rules provide for special meetings. Notice of the election must be given for whatever meeting it is scheduled for.

Yes, ballots should be issued to the membership, and unless your rules prohibit write-in votes, there should be blank lines (one for each different position up for election) included on the ballot to allow members to write in a candidate of their choice. You did not say how many fewer candidates you have than the number required, but if some positions don't have any candidate and no one is elected as a write-in, you will have an incomplete election, which should be completed as soon as possible. If your rules allow you can call a special meeting for this purpose, or you can schedule it for the next regular meeting, if it is held within a quarterly time period. By chance, are you running your elections solely by mail-in balloting? Also, don't be surprised if your question gets moved to the General Discussion forum.

RONR describes a standard order of business (pp. 25-27) which will meet the needs for business meetings of most typical organizations. One of the topics under that standard order is reports of officers, boards, and standing committees, and the president's report should occur as part of that topic. Even if your organization uses an agenda that differs somewhat from the standard order of business the president's report should be included in that agenda, along with reports from other officers, boards, and committees. Such reports should always be given in writing and then kept on file by the secretary. Such written reports are not entered into the minutes directly (unless ordered by the assembly), but may be attached to the minutes as a separate document. The only exception noted by RONR is for very brief reports given orally for which the secretary is able to record the complete substance of the report in the minutes (RONR, p. 525-526).

I'm a little confused here. Guest Terry, are you asking about rules governing board meetings or meetings of the general membership?

If a nominee is elected by acclamation (equivalent to unanimous consent) because there were no other nominees for the same position and a ballot vote was not required, there is no purpose in asking for yeas and nays - the assembly has already decided there is no one else they want to vote for. Yes, a chair can declare himself elected by acclamation if the conditions stated above are satisfied.

Richard - My impression was that the assembly wanted to create a second committee to consider the original (incidental) main motion to send a matter to a special committee, i.e., refer the referral. The purpose seemed to be to set the parameters for that special committee's work. Although Josh has said that it is in order to apply the subsidiary motion to refer to an incidental main motion to refer, it seems that it would be more efficient to just amend the incidental main motion to refer to include whatever parameters are appropriate.

The key to the answer to your question is not "nominee', but 'on the board'. If this person is a current member of the board, and it is the board that is voting, then that person can vote. His or her status as a nominee is irrelevant unless your rules say otherwise.

Yes. Until a member is actually removed from office by either the procedures described in your bylaws or by the procedure specified in RONR, that person is still a member and entitled to vote. The exception would be if your bylaws contain a provision that denies an accused person the right to vote.

You stated in your initial post that anyone running for office must also have attended 7 general membership meetings during the previous year, yet that requirement is not included in the bylaw quotation you cited above. Is that requirement listed somewhere else in your bylaws, or is it included in some other rule? Any requirements for running - or holding - office must be included in the bylaws.

I'll try to answer your specific questions:

If the organization has adopted RONR as its parliamentary authority, rules that encompass fundamental principles of parliamentary law may not be suspended (p. 263, ll.15-18). According to RONR, rules contained in the bylaws may not be suspended unless they are in the nature of rules of order or provide for their own suspension (p.263, ll. 1-7). However, if your bylaws say that a majority of the entire membership can suspend any bylaw provision, then that would take precedence over the rules in RONR. Let's hope you did not include any fundamental principles of parliamentary law in your bylaws.

I think the best way to do this is have the presentation outside of a business meeting atmosphere. You can do it at the same time and place as a business meeting, but have your meeting before introducing the presenter. There's no need to deal with the rules of debate if the topic being presented and discussed is not going to be an item of business at that time.

I wasn't implying that there was anything wrong with the count. RONR does not appear to place any restrictions on the reasons for a recount, only a time restriction, and leaves the choice of whether to order a recount or not entirely up to the assembly. My thought was that a recount would allow a second look at the results, make the erroneous call by the chair more obvious, and possibly provide for a correction.. However, in order to spare Mr. Mervosh and the rest of us any further head-spinning from the extensive previous threads referenced - which as I see it didn't really provide a definitive answer to the question - I'll be glad to let my question rest.

One month is clearly within the quarterly time interval period. If this were a ballot election and if the ballots were securely preserved, would a call for a recount change the view that the result declared by the president could not be corrected?

I don't think the method of filling this vacancy makes any difference, as long as it is in keeping with the bylaw provisions, which it appears to be from your description. Whether elected or appointed, even if only for a short term of office until the next AGM, the person now in the position would be considered as the president, not as an 'acting' or 'temporary' president.

I will assume that the meeting you are referring to is a meeting of your student senate. The rule in RONR is that only members of the body that is meeting have the right to speak. Non-members, however, may be granted the right to speak to the assembly by a majority vote of the body (or by unanimous consent) if their speaking is not in debate of a motion, or by a 2/3 vote to suspend the rules in order to speak in debate on a motion. As an aside, although you didn't ask - non-members may never be granted the right to vote.