Tom Coronite

You should fill the vacancies. Until you do, the quorum appears to be 5.

Think about it - if the quorum remains at 6 despite however many vacancies you may have, you could not conduct business.

Is the wrath still to be feared??

will do.

And if an eager member blurts out "I move to approve the minutes!" before the chair gets a chance to say that the minutes are approved as corrected?  (I took it that was the OP's question, and have seen it happen fairly often)

As Mr Brown notes, such a motion would not be out of order, even though it's not needed.  I believe the chair should just continue as RONR prescribes, and maybe take it as an opportunity to do some helpful instruction on the proper procedure. (briefly, of course)

Help me out here please. The responses are confusing.

 

Our rural government council has policy on meeting structure with a caveat to address the unknowns as a fall back to  Roberts Rules of Order for meeting structure.

 

First off, RONR perhaps should be more properly designated as your parliamentary authority rather than a fall back for various instances when your policy on meeting structure is lacking.

 

I am looking for an answer as to whether a motion is required that I can reference under Robert's Rules specific to an agenda item (of which the agenda was approved) that simply provides a specific topic for discussion. A discussion note outlining the topic was included under this agenda item.

 

As indicated above, the answer is no specific motion should have been required to start talking/discussing.  But also as noted above, it appears your group should be using a standard order of business as opposed to an agenda, so you're from the start operating outside RONR, and trying to use RONR to fix issues caused by operating outside RONR might be fruitless.

 

The discussion note clearly states it is intended as a discussion only  with no action is requested. The intent was only to throw out ideas for further discussion on this topic to determine if there was any consensus to pursue ideas.

 

If there was consensus, then perhaps a motion could be struck if an action was required at that time.

 

And that's fine, but as details later showed, apparently a majority of members wanted NOT to discuss the item.  The will of the majority steers what happens.

 

However, the chair forced a motion to open the discussion which was defeated, therefore no discussion occurred. This appears to be a political maneuver as other agenda items, like correspondence are read and discussed without a motion. There is a Q&A agenda item which is opened for discussion without a motion.

 

Again, even if the "forced" motion was improper or unnecessary, it doesn't appear anyone raised a point of order.  And again, the majority wanted not to discuss the issue.

Which is correct? Is a motion required for discussion? In reviewing Roberts Rules, everything suggests that the only time a motion is required is if there is an expected action. If the action arises out of a discussion, at that time it is appropriate to lay a motion on the table, but there is nothing I can find to suggest a motion is required to open a simple discussion.

 

This is what I am seeking clarity on. Where does RRoO show a motion is needed to open a discussion that has already been approved as such on the agenda.

 

It doesn't.  But given the details you've described, it may be a moot point.  Somewhere between approving the agenda and the "forced" motion, apparently the group changed its collective mind.  

I took Guest Cindy's question to be not about a motion arising out of discussion nor a motion to do something, but rather is it necessary to make a motion to discuss.

IOW if the agenda states there will be discussion on the clubhouse, by approving the agenda are they ensuring they'll discuss the clubhouse, or does someone have to say "I move we discuss the clubhouse!"?

If that's the case, it would not appear a motion to discuss would be needed, especially if the group in question is a (sub)committee.