Kim Goldsworthy

It is a MYTH to believe that: • A board member loses his right to debate within a meeting of the general membership.

I can't follow the flow. Q. How did a "chief steward" get involved in anything? And he asserts he is suddenly vice president? Out of nowhere? >> What happens to the shuffled around officers? There is no way to tell There is no such thing as "reinstatement" in Robert's Rules of Order. Either you are "in" or you are "out". So what you are describing has no corollary in The Book.

Statement S1 is the cited customized rule. Statement S2 is FALSE. -- It is a faulty interpretation of S1. *** The phrase "present and voting" has a fixed meaning. It means that the members who count toward toward the denominator are only those members who satisfy the two criteria: (a.) are they present? (b.) are they voting? • If they are NOT present, then they do NOT count toward the denominator. • If they are NOT voting, then they do NOT count toward the denominator. If someone were to argue that "all members present" count toward the denominator, then your constitution would be violated when/if any member present where to fail to cast an affirmative ballot or a negative ballot. -- They may be present, but they are not voting. *** Your vote was 6-2 with two abstentions (namely, one blank ballot, and one member who failed to submit a ballot at all). A vote of 6-2 does satisfy the requirement "vote of two-thirds of members present and voting." The motion was adopted. The member is terminated.

Note the phrase, ". . . when requested . . .". A request is not a demand. A request is not a call. The actual calling is up to the calling party, here, the president. >> I believe the president calls the date and time of the meeting. Am I not correct? Based on your customized rule's wording, I would agree with you.

The board is free to suspend its own rules and adopt policies prior to their own pre-determined waiting period. *** The act of creating a 60 day "consultation" (?) period is not a rule regarding "previous notice". So any argument about protecting absentees won't hold, because (a.) the general public has no rights to attend the board meeting, being non-members, and (b.) the general public (i.e., non-members) has no right of previous notice as parliamentary law applies. The board may grant it, and the board may take it away. The board need not respect any consultation period of its own creating. ***

This method is not a method taken from Robert's Rules of Order. It violates a fundamental principle of parliamentary law. So, technically, your question is moot. You cannot adopt that which violates a fundamental principle of parliamentary law.

Ah-ha! Q. Who is "we"? Q. How would "we" "authorize" such a "deposit"? If your answer is "Via a main motion, properly adopted," then you are in control of your funds. -- YOU HAVE SPENT THE FUNDS. If you want to keep 100% control of your funds, then defeat all motions like "To deposit $N into the endowment." Just as you would defeat a main motion, "That we replace the leaky roof of the clubhouse." (Don't tell me you want to "control" the funds spent on the maintenance of the clubhouse roof. The contractor doing the repairs will NOT return the "funds" to your "control". You authorized the withdrawal. You were in control. Until you weren't.)

Hmmmm . . . . I don't get that interpretation at all. *** (a.) "Easy access" and "liquidity" (your interpretation) has nothing to do with (b.) "usage exclusively toward tax-exempt purposes only" (your rule's teleological goal). *** You are thinking, "speed". Your rule is thinking, "consistency" (with the laws of tax-exemption). *** "Fast access" has nothing to do with "compliance with the laws of the land". • You can comply with IRS and state tax laws, and have slow, convoluted methods of retrieval of money. • You can violate IRS and state tax laws, and have rapid same-day withdrawals. One has nothing to do with the other. *** Your rule's last sentence says that "control" is only for a single purpose. -- To assure X. So, if you assure X, it makes no difference how liquid anything is.

>> But now he is calling it void because of that and Roberts Rules of Law. >> They are now using Robert's rule to valid their illegal claim. Even though you keep mentioning "Robert's Rules of Order," all your challenges (so far?) are based on unique customized rules (viz., qualification for office; lead time for nominations). So far, I see no violation of any rule in the 700+ pages of the current edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised. If you (collectively) have violated a bylaw, then you will have to interpret and apply that bylaw. -- There is no way for us to definitively interpret your customized rules, which are not lifted from Robert's Rules of Order.

>> . . . but the individual raising the motion did not indicate whether he/she was in the affirmative for the initial vote of the reconsidering motion, >> and the chair also did not follow in asking whether this person voted in the affirmative or not? Normally, the mover should have been queried by the chair regarding which side the member voted with. Since no one queried the member, and since no point of order was raised, then, if I were chair, I would let it stand. I mean, there was no objection by anyone present. *** You snooze, you lose. Or, here, You acquiesce, you suffer the consequences.

>> The question is, when a new member is appointed, >> will he replace an existing but term-expired member first, or fill an existing vacancy first? *** That is to be determined by the appointing body. There is no "default" order: (a.) fill vacancies; (b.) elect normal cycle seats. If you hold any kind of election, you will do the filling simultaneously. You will nominate people for #a, and you will nominate people for #b. Then you conduct an election. This usually is not seen, because the act of filling vacancies typically is conducted in-between regular election cycles. So your "problem" never occurs, in 95% of all organizations. (It is rare to have a death or resignation timed so well during the nomination phase of the election cycle.) Since you do have this scenario, then just conduct nominations for all seats, separately, and conduct one election, with the two sets of candidates separated by seat.

That rule does not imply, "once a deposit is made, no withdrawal is possible." An organization is free to control its funds. That means, "How to spend its own money." It doesn't mean, "Hoard until you die." You are mis-reading your own rule. *** You've heard of the inventory practice, "First in, first out," and "Last in, first out." You have an interpretation which implies, "First in, never out." That does not make sense.

Letter #a has an exception to the rule. RONR does allow for motions to be entertained which nominally would have fallen outside the organization's "purpose" or "object". See page 113. It is related to the motion, "Suspend the Rules."

Follow the METHOD OF AMENDMENT of your bylaws. It may be the board. It may be the general membership. It may be both. Whatever your bylaws say. *** Q. What is this "order" you speak of?

Consider this set of assumptions: 1.) Per strict application of Robert's Rules, a chair goes not engage in debate. 2.) The absent member wishes to engage in debate, using a written format. 3.) The request of the absent member is that the chair engage in debate, using the written words of the absent member. 4.) But this request violates the duty of the chair (see #1 above) to not engage in debate. My conclusion: • The chair should obey Robert's Rules of Order. The chair should not engage in debate. • If an absent member wishes his written argument to be read aloud in debate, the absent member, on his own, must solicit an attending member to read his written argument aloud. • The chair is under no obligation to read aloud another member's written argument during the debate portion of the meeting.

There are a couple of paragraphs on the subject of "electronic meetings" on pages 97-99 of the current edition of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised. So, yes, there are a few rules in The Book. But The Book also says For obvious reasons -- sight, sound, glitches, simultaneous audio reception, verification of membership (vs. non-membership), etc.

(We see question often enough that someone should create a Frequently Asked Questions entry.) Under Robert's Rules of Order, there is no such thing as an automatic nomination. • If nominations are conducted from the floor, then a member must make the nomination. • If nominations are conducted in some other way, a customized method, then a sitting officer better pre-plan how to accomplish his nomination.

don't you find that unpunctuated run-on sentences are hard to read especially when we don't know who they are and don't know what a petition has to do with anything and then you change the subject from an issue of petitions to an issue of voicing one's opinions or are you questioning the bias of the people who are leading the meeting so what topic of the many topics in your run-on unpunctuated post do you want an answer from us on

Your rule is a customized rule. Your rule was not lifted from Robert's Rules of Order. So, your rule is subject to interpretation. No one's interpretation will be authentic, because only the organization itself can interpret its own customized rules. *** With that said, I will offer some observations. Q. If a letter is anonymous, then how shall the organization verify the rule requirement: ". . . member in good standing . . ."? An anonymous letter might have been written by a member who is in bad standing -- or by someone is not a member at all. Q. How do you plan to administer this verification requirement, on an anonymous letter?

A1.) Wait a minute. For what reason would the "other commissioners" justify adopting a motion of censure? Would it be because the "county commission chairman" had abstained? i.e., exercised a right? That's not right. You cannot embarrass a member because a parliamentary right has been exercised. You would look like a fool. A chair is not obligated under parliamentary law to break ties. The chair is free to let ties remain in place. A2.) An act of censure takes away no rights, and suspends no one, and suspends nothing. A motion of censure may be moved without a formal disciplinary action preceding it. A motion of commendation may be amended into a motion of censure, and vice-versa. It is an opinion, it is an expression. Nothing more. A3.) No. Of course not. Why would "the initial vote be re-voted on"? How does one thing relate to the other?

Q. Is not "suspension" an "other penalty"? *** RONR already says that a member may have any subset of membership rights suspended. It is not necessarily the case like the Frank Sinatra song, "All or Nothing at All." See page 6.

A1.) Yes. Robert's Rules does not contain any such prohibition. Not even for siblings. Not even for parent-child. A2.) Not necessarily. It is possible that a motion could be moved where a conflict of interest might pop up. But there is no constant conflict of interest ongoing, just by having spouses sit on the same board or committee. *** (Just "being married" is "conflict enough".)

You should consider yourself lucky that a rule exists where, if the primary caller does not respect the urgency of two or more members of the committee, then the secondary caller, namely, the two or more members of the committee, are not held hostage to a sick, stubborn, dead, or M-I-A, committee chair. *** Thank goodness for alternative callers of meetings. Monopolies are bad things.

For a committee, no single person gets to "hold hostage" 100% of the work of the committee. A committee chair cannot prevent two members from calling a meeting. *** A committee does not need a chair between meetings. -- At the meeting, a pro tem chair would be elected, if the regular chair could not (would not?) attend.

Read it for yourself. [page 499]