SaintCad

What do your bylaws say. It may require new business to be submitted before the meeting.

p 429: Straw polls not in order. For RONR to apply a motion would have to be made to move the service to Wednesday. A member can move that the vote be taken by secret ballot (p 285).

That'll teach me to not turn the page (the mention of the special meeting provision is on p 264). Thanks for pointing me to the right subsection.

Then are you saying that such a motion is continuing breach (d) on page 251 because if not wouldn't the Point of Order have to be at the Special Meeting when the motion was brought up? THAT is my problem with your solution, the Point of Order has to be timely and not at the next meeting. Ratify on the other hand can be used at the next meeting to determine if the motion in question was proper and addresses JJ's point of how you bring the issue up at the next meeting. Member A: I move to ratify the motion "Sam is authorized to buy a new pen." at the last special meeting. Member B: Point of Order*, the motion was specified on the call for the special meeting. Chair: The point is (not) well-taken. *This Point of Order is timely as it addresses the motion to ratify not the actions taken at the last meeting. So yes - I don't understand how passing a motion not on the call of a special meeting is a continuing breach. Please educate me.

I still think it is a non sequitur. Look at it this way, Can the maker of a motion unilaterally withdraw it once it is stated by the chair? What's the difference? Just because you create something doesn't mean you can dissolve it. I'd like to see a reference in RONR that says you can.

Why wouldn't the Chair be able to correct themselves no matter how the error came to their attention? "If the Chair notices a breach, he corrects the matter immediately" (p 249)

I don't see anything on pp 310-314 indicating this. A special committee exists as long as the motion is committed to it. I don't see what exactly ends a special committee but I imagine it definitely does not exist after the question referred to it has been disposed of and we know it ceases to exist when the assembly discharges it. Reading between the lines I feel the committee is like a motion - it doesn't matter how it came into existence but once it exists it belongs to the assembly. As for standing committees, reading p 490 l 32-34 I don't see how RONR allows for a Chair to unilaterally eliminate it. Of course all of this is with the caveat that the bylaws may be different.

Even if that is true, that doesn't necessarily mean the Chair can unilaterally discharge or eliminate a committee. The Chair would need a separate power for that.

I don't think I'm disagreeing with you - read my response to JJ. I don't think I even disagree with you on having the regular meeting declare the not-valid motions as null and void. My contention is that that is done though the motion to Rescind - specifically if Rescind is lost.

I don't think any wording is necessary since p 93 presumes any business at the special meeting not on the agenda is not valid. I think that a motion would be made to Ratify and if a member thinks that the motion from the special meeting is valid that it is up to them to raise a Point of Order. I suppose that the Chair themselves could rule Ratify is out of order subject to Appeal if they believe everything from the special meeting was valid. But here is the tricky part, the proper motions that passed at the special meetings are valid and the improper ones are never valid so how do you call attention to the not-valid ones. I think in this case the motion to Ratify acts as the replacement for the Point of Order - viz. the member is calling the validity of the motion into question. Moreover it should be timely like a Point of Order and failure to move to Ratify at the next meeting is in effect unanimous consent that all actions at the special meeting was valid.

Not according to Page 93 which implies that such action is presumed by its very nature to be invalid and thus only a motion to Ratify is needed. If there is a controversy as to whether the action taken was truly null and void that could be addressed via debate or a Point of Order while the motion to Ratify is pending.

Thank you. Surprised anyone remembered.

Yet Rescind And Expunge requires a majority of the membership which is a different voting standard (2/3, majority w/ notice or majority of membership) than Rescind. Are you saying that provided I time it correctly I could accomplish the same thing as Rescind And Expunge but with only a 2/3 vote?

Nope. The motion is Discharge a Committee. It is debatable and amendable. However, since it changes something the assembly has already approved it falls into the 2/3 OR majority with notice OR majority of the membership to carry. An affirmative vote cannot be reconsidered. Ref: S 36; p 310-312.

What is not clear is: Is it written in the bylaws that nominations MUST pass through the committee and if so is there a deadline or could I send a quick email from my phone at the meeting to the nominating committee chair.

Shouldn't that be "session" (p 111). I only bring that up because I was recently at a convention that declared that a Motion to Reconsider was out of order because the original motion was passed at a different meeting on the previous day but within the same session and the language on p 316 l 29-30 would have made the decision worthy of a Point of Order*. *The maker of the motion changed their motion to Amend Something Previously Adopted.

And don't forget it could be majority of the membership so if there are 60 members total and 50 at the meeting it would still need 31 votes to pass.

So what happens if the "vote" is for someone else? Is THAT person elected or does everyone laugh and the nominee is elected?

I know this is a zombie but I gotta ask, you think an assembly can legitimately order any member to vote a certain way and/or not abstain?

Dealing with a body where the Chair wants to remove the secretary. I am trying to get the bylaws and here is what I know. The Chair appointed the secretary to fill the position (which is allowed by their bylaws) but as far as anyone knows, the bylaws does not cover the removal of officers and the Chair's position is that he appointed the secretary so he can remove him at will. What does RONR say? "any regularly elected officer of a permanent society can be removed from office by the society's assembly as follows:" Thing is he wasn't "regularly elected" so how would an appointed replacement for a regularly-elected position be removed? And to further complicate the issue, the Chair himself may end up on ethical charges (if needed, remember I don't have the exact wording of the bylaws yet re: pp 653-4) but it looks like the Chair is in charge of the trial. Did I miss a part in Chapter XX where the Chair is automatically replaced when he is on trial (for the purposes of administrating the trial itself) or does the assembly have to remove him temporarily or does the Chair chair their own trial?

You also need a chair to do the right thing. Serving as a Parliamentarian for a school council, we had a self-proclaimed expert (she wasn't) claim what rules were. The chair rarely asked for my advice and ignored my points of order. The principal said we should disregard parliamentary law as "it gets in the way of collaboration" so apparently I was the bad guy trying to block discussion.