Gary Novosielski

Lack of a quorum does not mean the meeting did not occur. It occurred but was, as the term of art refers to it, inquorate. Without a quorum no business may be transacted except the motions listed in RONR (12th ed.) 40:7. Receiving reports from committees, for example, would not be permitted, even if these reports contained no actionable recommendations. I would be hard pressed to say that any harm was done by giving information to those present at the meeting, but officially, formally, as a matter of record, the presentation did not count. It was essentially equivalent to adjourning the meeting, and then having casual conversations afterward. If it was information that was, by rule, required to be announced at a meeting, it will have to be repeated at a future, quorate, meeting.

"The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." ~ Mark Twain "Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it." ~Benjamin Franklin

It's not clear to me whether we're speaking of board meetings, membership meetings, or some combination of the two. Since RONR does not require an agenda at all, in fact recommending against it for most societies, anything regarding who prepares or approves the agenda would be found in your own rules, or perhaps just customs.

Understood. I did not mean to imply that you were the guilty party. 🙂

Apparently the bylaws do not state that a check of forty dollars must be filed. Rather, they specify a check of twenty-five dollars. Where did the odd notion that forty dollars is required come from?

The member should realize that perhaps the most essential duty of a Vice President is to automatically succeed to the office of President if the incumbent becomes the ex-incumbent. If he truly would not be willing to assume the office of President it would not be proper, in my view, to run for Vice President. This may seem obvious but regulars here will recognize that this has a way of becoming a problem in real life.

The best choice for a searchable version would be the Kindle edition from Amazon, which can be viewed (with search capability) on a PC with the Kindle app.

They do, but the good news is, there are rarely any substantial corrections offered.

Votes for ineligible candidates are considered "illegal votes". They are counted as votes cast, but are not credited to any candidate. Therefore, they can deny a majority as you have observed in your case. Ballots left blank are not votes cast, so they would not prevent a majority. RONR does not have "run-offs". You would have a second ballot, but it would not be limited to the top candidates. In fact it would even be in order to reopen nominations, if desired.

And neither does RONR say that a Mayor may set the agenda items at will. RONR getting a bad rap today.

But in this scenario the committee was instructed that it may not allow guests at its meetings, no?

It's fine for someone to send a memo to other members, but it definitely does not belong in the minutes. If it was not reached in the last meeting it should come up under Unfinished Business and General Orders at the next meeting.

Howzat?

Yes. Well, except that it's RONR, not RRON. 🙂

"29:5 fn. 7 refers to the rule regarding [rules] being suspended to permit a non member to enter into debate, which obviously implies attendance. " --J.J. It does, but not in the sense of tacitly authorizing attendance, especially if attendance is explicitly prohibited. The question of whether someone can speak in debate is moot if the person in question cannot attend.

There is no rule in RONR such as you mention, where the number of candidates require a mail-in vote. A ballot vote could certainly be done at a meeting. This rule must be in your own bylaws, which I assume is what you meant by "It says" in your last paragraph. You say that the nominating committee with nominate 3 candidates. Since your bylaws do not permit this, how will it be allowed to happen? When the report is delivered at a meeting, I would expect a flurry of Points of Order to be raised that the committee may nominate only one. Of course three more can easily be nominated from the floor, but that's no reason not to insist that the committee follow the rules. But mail ballots should not be received by one side or the other. They should be handled in accordance with 45:57-61, which provides in part: "The person designated as addressee for the returned ballots holds them in the outer envelopes for delivery, unopened, at the meeting of the tellers where the votes are to be counted." If you study the additional advice in that section, there should be no question of trust in the fairness of the election process. Regarding the tellers committee: "The tellers should be chosen for accuracy and dependability, should have the confidence of the membership, and should not have a direct personal involvement in the question or in the result of the vote to an extent that they should refrain from voting under the principle stated in 45:4. Often their position with regard to the issue involved is well known, however, and they are frequently chosen to protect the interests of each opposing side." [45:26]

Is this a new organization adopting bylaws for the first time, or an existing association adopting a full-scale revision to its old bylaws? Brand new bylaws which bring a new society into existence require only a majority vote to adopt. Subsequent changes, including a general revision, should be governed by rules included in the bylaws. If the bylaws somehow neglected to include this, amendments require previous notice and a two-thirds vote, or alternatively a vote of a majority of the entire membership. For additional rules, consult RONR (12th ed.) §57.

Well, what they did is not allowed under the rules in RONR. And what they did amounts to a recount, which only the assembly can initiate. Even if the recount had been in order, they would report only the revised vote counts, equivalent to a Tellers Report [see 45:37]. They do not announce the results, which is only done by the chair.

What sort of a motion was this? Who is "they" in the second sentence?

RONR is quite specific about this:

Motions can be made only during a meeting, not between meetings. But merely having a quorum present does not constitute a meeting. A meeting must either be a Regular (scheduled) meeting, or a Special (called) meeting. So if you need to consider a motion before the next regular meeting, you'll need a special meeting. Special meetings can only be called if there are provisions in the bylaws to do so, which should say by whom they may be called, and how many days previous notice are required. The call of the meeting must also describe the specific business which will be considered at the meeting. If these requirements are complied with, the meeting is said to be "properly called" and only then is it a valid Special meeting. And yes, a quorum does need to be present.

No, it would not be in order have the record reflect something that did not happen. But even if it were passed, what the minutes would actually reflect is an election that did not pass, followed by a motion to doctor the minutes. And a vote to make the vote 90% would take a 90% vote to pass, so if that level of approval existed, the election would have passed in the first place. What could be done, for a very limited time, is someone who voted No could move to Reconsider (§37) the vote, which needs a second and a majority vote, and if adopted would bring the question of electing the new pastor back before the assembly. However, it would still take 90% to elect. Reconsider can only be moved during that same session, so if the meeting adjourns without it, that's the end of the story.

When the chair receives a unanimous consent request, or seeks unanimous consent by saying "Without objection..." or "If there is not objection..." then remaining silent will imply consent. Since abstaining in ordinary votes is tantamount to consenting to whatever the majority decides, I see very little difference. However, if a member explicitly does not want the unanimous consent to succeed, for whatever reason, they would object at that point, the chair would declare "Objection is heard" and continue to handle the question like any other. The member could then abstain on the vote on the question, but since abstentions are not typically called for or recorded, the end result would appear to be no better than simply not objecting. There is a certain breed of member who gets intensely worked up in assuring that their abstention is made clear. I've never really understood that, since by abstaining you are effectively saying you don't care about the outcome. Matters might be different in the case of a roll-call vote, where it is possible to see who voted how. In that event, when called, a member can answer "Present" or "Abstain", and the fact that they chose not to vote is recorded. In many years on a school board I answered Present only once, when I did not want to be seen to stand in the way of what would be certain passage, but I could not in good conscience be supportive of the organization involved.

Nah, ask the consul to get you a passport and skip town.

It may depend on the perceived order of events and millisecond timing. If the president is removed first, the vice president succeeds, and since this is a different office, there's now no violation of the term limit. But if the term limits eject both the president and vice president at once, there are two vacancies. The other officers may also be within the blast radius, leaving no officers in place, regardless of what happens in the P/VP. I'd still like to get a look at their proposed wording, since this while operation is fraught with "interesting questions".