Gary Novosielski

That's the first time I've heard a cemetery referred to as a deliberative assembly. It's arguably an assembly, but the amount of deliberation that occurs is negligible.

Yes, I would assume it would be no one, since the motion failed, and nobody voted on the prevailing side (i.e., No). Am I off-base here?

Nope. Is the intent to turn an ad-hoc (special) committee into a standing committee? If so, then we're back to amending the bylaws, to create a standing committee. There is no "workaround".

Probably not, but I wouldn't say for certain, even with all that background information. 🙂

I think it depends on what the chair said. "If there is no objection, the <issue> will be adopted. Hearing none, the motion is adopted." versus: "Those in favor will say Aye.... <silence> [ <optional> Those opposed will say No.... <silence>] A sufficient number not having responded, the motion is rejected."

You can use the word "consider" which includes the whole process. You do not need to list the motions word for word, but you will need to be more specific than that. "Topics related to" tells me next to nothing. The call must "clearly and specifically describ[e] the subject matter of the motions or items of business to be brought up", i.e. what are you trying to accomplish? And if you are doing bylaws amendments, that will almost certainly have more strict requirements for notice that goes well beyond the minimum needed for a special meeting. Check your bylaws for the rules pertaining to their own amendment. You don't want to get bitten by a Point of Order on account of a small mistake. I'm not sure what these "presentations" involve. Are they in the nature of committee reports? Or reports of some breakout group? In any case, the callers of the meeting set the topics, so nobody can just get up and give a "presentation" on the price of Sumatran cloves, no. But I would tend to think that if a topic is non-vote-related, it might as well be covered in an e-mail. RONR's rules say that discussion of a topic is not in order without a motion on the floor.

If you have already called the special meeting you may have painted yourself into a corner. First off, the Board does not preside over a Membership meeting. The president (and secretary) may be the presiding (and recording) officer for both kinds of meetings, but the Board is not in session and has no power during a Membership meeting--whether regular or special. But the problem is that the business to be considered at a special meeting must be clearly described in the call of the meeting (the written notice that must be sent to all members). If you have already sent out the call, you may have missed the boat. So there's no need for an agenda, since no business will be in order except what was described in the call of the meeting, and that's decided by whoever is calling the meeting.

A tie vote is less than a majority, so the motion is rejected. The result is just the same as if everyone voted No. The vote itself did not fail, the vote succeeded in making sure that whatever the motion proposed to do would not be done. So there's no crucial reason to prefer odd numbers of members in a body. There can always be absences and abstentions with any number of seats. The threshold for Rescind is higher than for an ordinary main motion, which requires a 2/3 vote, unless previous notice of intent was given, but with so few members, it would still require three out of four votes to pass. (See RONR 12th ed. §35) Edited to add: For that matter it could also pass with three out of five votes, because that is a majority of the entire membership of the board.

Well, I haven't seen your bylaws, but you might want to give them a look. There is a world of difference between generally having no voting, and having no voting rights at all, ever. And that distinction would determine the answer to your question. Perhaps others here will have some experience in how Booster Clubs are typically organized.

If nothing is done and nothing is decided, then in a parliamentary sense this isn't really a meeting, It's just a bunch of people in one place. Was this announced as a meeting? By whom? I'm confused by the highlighted phrase above. I know what a general meeting of the membership is, but what is a general meeting for the membershp? And how are you defining hosting?

On ordinary main motions, the vote required to adopt is a majority vote, which means more Yes votes than No votes. If the number of yes and no votes is equal (a tie) the motion fails. Even if the tie is 0-0. The motion is rejected. There was a quorum if a sufficient number of voters were present in the room--no matter if they actually vote or not. But if nobody cared how the motion turned out, I'm surprised that anyone bothered to make the motion in the first place, or why anyone seconded it. Was there something unusual about this motion? Edited to add: Oh, and yes it can be brought up again as soon as the next meeting.

Ah, very good. I missed a sighting of that citing.

Quite often the chair will ask if there are any questions. If not, you can still ask, called a Request for Information (See RONR 12th ed. 33:6). It's up to the person you're asking whether they will consent to taking a question, and they may not be willing and able to answer it right then, sometime later, or ever. And definitely no guarantee that if given an answer, you will like it. 🙂

If that's the case, it would resolve most of my concerns. So it seems we agree, then, that even if the bylaws allow the holding of multiple offices, the holding of multiple identical seats for one office is a different matter and should be assumed to be improper. It makes perfect sense to me, but I don't know of any specific language that could be cited in support of it.

If you will indulge me a bit longer: hypothetically, presume the current scenario, and suppose that no applicable rule prohibits people from holding multiple offices. An incumbent director, having served two years of a three-year term, is permitted to run for a new three-year term, is elected, and does not immediately resign from his existing seat. Presume the board per the bylaws, is to have nine members Does he now hold multiple offices? One office? Must he resign from (or automatically vacate) his current seat? If he remains in both seats, how many members does the board now have? A member raises a point of order that there is an unfilled vacancy. How should the chair rule?

Maybe, but then again I have never been able to a quorum, so there's that.

Offices are as listed in the bylaws. I'll bet you won't find those two "different" offices listed there.

And I'm familiar with the identical situation for NJ school board where the short term was listed separately but a candidate could not run for both. Edited to add: @J. J., I wonder if the situation was really similar to the current question, where someone would be on the ballot once, for a full term, being already an incumbent in an equivalent non-expiring term.

That's certainly true. But my thinking here is that he is not running for another office. He is running for the same office that he already holds. And whether or not the bylaws prohibit members from holding two offices at a time, it would be absurd for a member to hold two identical seats in one office simultaneously. So in my view, he should not be allowed to run for a different term length of the same office, without unconditionally resigning from the seat he currently holds.

Regarding Footnotes to Chapter VIII, Note 15 says: 15. See 30:3(2)n14, which also applies to these motions. However there is no call to a footnote 14 in §30 at all. The call to footnote 14, assuming the chapter is correct, occurs in 31:1.

This could be set up as long as your bylaws (check carefully) don't require some other method. You would have to figure out how you want to set up and run a polling place at the service, and make the appropriate motion(s) at a prior meeting, as with nominations. See §30. MOTIONS RELATING TO METHODS OF VOTING AND THE POLLS for a lot more detail.

That is an interesting question. It certainly could create a problem if he won. When exactly would his present seat be vacated? I think it could be logically argued that it's not in order to run for an office (i.e., board member) that one already holds. If we accept that, then to run for a different term, he would have to resign from his current term, effective on or before election day. In that case, he runs the risk of losing, and being out of both seats at the end of the day. If he'll resign his present seat only after confirming that he'd been elected to the longer term, I think I'd have to object to that. But that's just me. If your bylaws are silent, and RONR (apparently) is silent, then maybe it's allowed, but that's something your society will have to interpret for itself. I'd be arguing for the "gotta resign first" case, but since I'm not a member, that's neither here nor there.

If the chair knows the rules, that can't happen. There should never be a vote on approval of minutes. The only valid way to object to the contents of the minutes is to offer a correction. Anyone who does not do so is presumed to approve of the draft minutes. So when (and if) any (or all) corrections are dealt with (agreed to or otherwise) the chair declares the minutes approved.

But when that's done, it's still a good idea to have a rule that the newly elected candidates take office at the close of business of the convention, so the program is followed through normally. You can have a little passing of the gavel at the end, and let the new president adjourn the thing. Or not.

True vacancies in office may be filled, but if the seat is not vacant but only under suspension, there is no rule in RONR that would allow what you suggest. There's no reason that club members could not assist with the work, but they would not gain the power to move, debate, vote, or otherwise participate in board meetings. It is unclear to me how these suspensions could have been done by a committee in the first place, so I can only assume (based on no information) that this process comports with your bylaws, as it does not resemble anything in RONR.