Gary Novosielski

Given that a motion to "rescind" a pending question was (incorrectly) made (and received majority support), the intent of the body, it seems to me, was closer to withdrawal of the motion than to postponement of it. Especially since the earlier idea to "table" it, pending further information, was floated but apparently went nowhere.

No, the motion would have to be made in the parent body. The committee cannot suspend the rules so as to give itself additional powers.

No, I am not suggesting that you did. The sarcasm was on my part, and was not directed at you so much as at the "someone" referred to here: which is what prompted the penguin reference. I think sarcasm directed at that "someone" might be appropriate. Glad to know you find the forum useful. Good luck.

I'm unclear as to whether it is the board or the general membership who would be ratifying this action. It may be obvious, but I'll point out for completeness that in order to ratify an action, a body must possess the power to have approved of the action in advance. If the action would have required a membership vote to authorize it in advance, then the board cannot ratify it.

Ah, I see it worked. And you're welcome.

If the board has the power to change the membership application, then a vote would be required. And before that a motion would be required, specifying what the change was to be. Presumably this would be a motion to Amend Something Previously Adopted [RONR (12th ed.) §35]. To adopt this motion requires: If previous notice is given, a majority vote; If previous notice is not given: a two thirds vote; or a majority of the entire membership (of the board) If the board is small and everyone attends and votes, the first and last of those are essentially the same. But, if the board does not have the power to make this change, then the membership could do the same at a membership meeting. Your bylaws are the place to look to determine what powers the board has or doesn't have.

If I can piece together what happened, three members agreed that the motion should be "tabled" but no action to table or postpone the motion was actually adopted. Then the mover moved to "rescind" the motion, and a vote was taken which passed.. Technically, it's not possible to rescind a motion that was never adopted in the first place. But the main problem here seems to be the terminology being used. "Tabling" the motion would not have been in order, but the proper motion would have been to Postpone the motion--but that seems not to have been done. If the intent of the motion to "rescind" was to "un-move" it, the proper motion would have been requesting leave to withdraw, which would have that effect. If that's what everyone believed--that they were voting to undo the motion, then I think in spite of the terminology mismatch, the motion was actually withdrawn. The status of the motion now is that it is no longer under consideration. It would be possible to move it again at some point, or it could be allowed to rest in peace--whatever the parties prefer. So its status is essentially as it was before it was moved. As far as the status of the appeal is concerned, it would be as it was before the motion was made. If the Board of Appeals is still obligated to consider it, then they can take it up again. The seconding or lack of it makes no difference at this point.

If it's within the 40-day period, you cannot submit a new notice since it is then too late. And you can't amend a motion that hasn't been moved yet. You can move to change it at the meeting, however, if it is within the scope of the change that was proposed in the first notice. Since we don't know what the current dates are, we can't tell whether it is or not.

Well, you might have pointed out what your bylaws said. We can't guess. Since your bylaws say the VP will assume the duties, then the VP will assume the duties. That is, if you are correctly paraphrasing what your bylaws say. If the bylaws do not give the president the power to put people in office, then the president does not have that power. Yes, death qualifies as a very good excuse for absence. It also qualifies as the ultimate disability. It is strongly discouraged to have dead members present in the meeting room, and even if present they cannot vote, so absence is the only other option. Anyone who is not present is, by definition, absent. I'm sure the bylaws do not say anything about officers not being penguins, but that does not mean that they are.

No, Ksthy. There is no such requirement in RONR.

It will depend on what is in your bylaws. (If the office of president becomes vacant, the VP does immediately become president--not only until an election is held, but for the entire remainder of the president's term. However, It would be quite uncommon for the VP to step into any vacancy whatsoever.) And no, the president has no power to appoint unless the bylaws say so. Do your bylaws say anything at all about filling vacancies? If not, do you have an executive board? If you do, what powers do the bylaws grant to the board? If you don't, or if the board has insufficient powers, you will need a special election (presuming an election was how the officer got the job to begin with.) Edited to add: Sorry for the redundancy, I went to feed the dogs before submitting this.

Surely you meant a stunning committee.

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If they really don't know them, try to educate them. If they really know them and don't care, take the temperature of the group to see how many others you could get to support your efforts in a struggle, if it came to that. If it appears that things will never get better, leave. Life is too short to waste time beating your head against a wall.

As a new presiding officer, you would benefit greatly by getting a copy of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised in Brief (3rd ed.), also known as RONRIB. It is much shorter than the full-scale book, known as RONR, but it contains the 10% of the rules that cover 90% of situations, and will give you a good basic understanding of how meetings work, how motions and amendments work, and the role of the presiding officer. And for more unusual situations, it gives citations to the appropriate material in RONR (Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (12th ed.) which is the more massive and detailed reference work. RONR is easier to work with if you already have citations to look up for your particular case. Yes, it's possible to read RONR from cover to cover (don't ask me how I know this) though that's not the way most people use it. But it is very possible and advisable to read RONRIB from cover almost to cover, and you'll come away with a firm foundation. And we're here if anything seems confusing.

If the president is unable to perform the required duties, the vice president should be called on to preside. Or if there is no vice president present, any member can be elected to preside as president pro-tem for that meeting. It is a bad idea to call on the secretary, because the secretary ordinarily is occupied with recording the minutes, and if called on to do twice the work will likely not perform either task well.

Yes, when the revision is moved, it is open to amendment. Each amendment is handled separately. The typical method is to consider the revision a paragraph or section at a time, in manageable pieces. Amendments are allowed for each paragraph, and voted on. Amendments require only a majority vote to be agreed to. If no (more) discussion or amendments are offered for a particular paragraph, move on to the next. Once the whole document has been "perfected" the entire revision is then voted on for final approval (or rejection). If your bylaws are silent, or are typical, a two-thirds vote is required for final passage. The rules in RONR do require previous notice, but do not require that it be done at a meeting. But your custom rules do not conflict with anything in RONR. I don't know what your bylaws actually say, except what you have described, which is apparently a paraphrase, not the actual language, but assuming there are no surprises there, the final vote can be taken at the second meeting. If it takes longer than you expect, the matter can be postponed to a third meeting and taken up again, but if it's ready for the vote at the second meeting, there's no reason to delay the vote.

I now have less of a clue than I had a while ago.

If the bylaws amendment did not say anything about present incumbents, and there was no proviso at the time saying how it applied to incumbents, then I have no idea. Didn't anyone think to ask this at the time? Not even the president and vice president?

I think a comma after Society would also work. Edited to add: Well, depending which way you wanted to take it.

If there is no agenda, then RONR provides that the Standard Order of Business as stated below is the prescribed order of business: 41:5 Basic Headings Covering Business Proper. The customary or “standard” order of business comprises the following subdivisions: 1) Reading and Approval of Minutes 2) Reports of Officers, Boards, and Standing Committees 3) Reports of Special (Select or Ad Hoc) Committees 4) Special Orders 5) Unfinished Business and General Orders 6) New Business

Agreeing with @Rob Elsman, I would add that if through some oversight, the chair failed to declare the meeting adjourned, it nevertheless adjourned if everyone packed up and left.

If nobody raised a Point of Order at the time, the chair's announcement of the result stands. The most effective time to note and correct breaches of the rules is when they occur.

And even if they are not "ruled" on in any way, there is never a requirement that they be answered, much less answered to the satisfaction of the questioner.

I think RONR anticipates that the audit report will be submitted for adoption at the AGM. Perhaps, like a nominating committee appointed at the AGM, their intended reporting time is at the next AGM?