Josh Martin

Would say they could only start an account for the organization's funds if the board authorizes it. If authorized, the board can (and probably should) require some form of reporting - either a separate report or ordering the board members to cooperate with the treasurer so the new account can be included in his reports.

I would disagree. If this person takes all minutes, then it seems to me that as a parliamentary matter, she is the recording secretary and should sign all minutes.

No, he certainly did not have the right to speak at that time. Only members of the Executive Committee have a right to speak in meeting of the Executive Committee. As noted, the Executive Committee may permit non-members to speak if it wishes to do so. Since it appears this was not done, the chair should have called the speaker to order.

Based on this additional information, it seems to me you should simply sign all of the minutes. But failing that, sign the minutes which you took when you served as Acting Secretary.

As I noted in your other thread on the subject, you would sign the minutes you actually took, and you would initial the minutes which were approved while you were the Secretary Pro Tem. But if you take all of the minutes anyway, then so far as RONR is concerned, you are the recording secretary, and you should be signing all of the minutes.

You initial the minutes which were approved while you served as acting Secretary, and you sign the minutes which you actually took. The minutes are signed when they are submitted for approval, and you are the one submitting them for approval. They are initaled when the assembly approves them.

Then it would seem that you have your answer.

There are so many problems here. As Saint Cad has suggested, a straw poll is not in order - as you say, the pastor wanted to "get an idea," which does not sound like a binding motion to me. Additionally, there should have been a clear motion regarding changing the service to Wednesday. Since the current service is on Thursday, those who wished for the service to remain on Thursday could have voted "no." But back to your questions, it was quite improper for the pastor to order members to write their names on the ballots (or for the pastor to order that ballots be used in the first place). The assembly may order a ballot vote, and the vote is presumed to be a secret ballot unless a "signed ballot" (which is really a form of roll call vote) is specified and there is no purpose for a signed ballot except in an assembly which is responsible to an interested constituency. Unsigned ballots should have been counted. I agree that votes which were marked "either" should not have counted - those seem to be in the nature of abstentions.

Then a quorum is 15% of the membership. The original poster's question was what the quorum was if the bylaws did not specify a quorum.

No, this would certainly not be sufficient. The purpose of notice is to help members determine whether they wish to attend the meeting. So it doesn't do much good if the notice is not distributed until the meeting begins.

I'm not sure that is the right analogy. It is clear that the power to appoint carries with it the power to remove. It would seem to me that the power to create carries with it the power to dissolve, although I acknowledge that there is nothing in RONR which specifically states as much.

The latter. The assembly has not adopted anything, so there is no need to rescind anything. A member may simple reintroduce the motion at a future meeting, unless your rules provide otherwise.

No rule in RONR would prohibit it.

The chairman could temporarily relinquish the chair in order to make a motion. I'm curious how this happened, but in any event, you cannot simply "change" who made the motion, nor is there any need to do so.

Robert's Rules says it's fine. It seems to me that they are a voting member. Also, where do you get the idea that non-voting members must leave the room when the assembly enters executive session? Is this in your bylaws? It's not in RONR.

The fact that the President has the power to appoint members to committees does not necessarily mean that he has the power to create committees, but assuming that he does, I agree that he could dissolve committees he created. As for the second case, while the President could technically pull a stunt like that, it doesn't seem like a very good career move for the President. If the President removes all members from a properly established committee and refuses to appoint new members, I would expect disciplinary procedures to be forthcoming.

I don't understand the problem. If there is a record of how each individual member voted, those votes can be counted. If the minutes simply state the total number of votes on each side, there isn't anything to count. If tally sheets are taken and securely preserved, these may be recounted. It is rather unlikely that this will be done in practice, however, unless perhaps if the assembly is especially large. There is something to count if tally sheets are used. If not, there is nothing to count. Whether the question is on an election has nothing to do with it. Because tally sheets do not simply include the totals. They include tally marks, and those tally marks can be counted. The rule is that you can't have a recount unless there is something to count. Simply looking at the totals isn't counting.

Yes, exactly. The minutes should be approved, since they are an accurate record of what happened. Then a separate motion would be made in new business to amend the previously adopted motion.

If this was merely a typographical error, made after the meeting, then so far as RONR is concerned, "a little bit of white out will fix it." On the other hand, if the chair stated the question on replacing Ordinance 48, then that is what was adopted, and the council will need to fix it. Since this is a government body, there may also be legal issues involved.

If this is a special committee, disbanding and discharging the committee are synonymous. If it is a standing committee, it is correct to draw a distinction, but then this also raises interesting questions about whether the board had the authority to establish the committee to begin with. I concur that, in any event, the President does not have the authority to do this on his own.

If this is an unincorporated society, see RONR, 11th ed. pgs. 562-563 for the proper procedures for a merger or consolidation. If this is an incorporated society, consult an attorney.

If you read the next paragraph of that post, it seems pretty clear that Dan is not saying that. It appears that General Robert suggested in a particular instance that the assembly could accomplish an even greater effect than Rescind and Expunge by a 2/3 vote when the minutes were pending for approval. Rescind and Expunge still leaves the motion in the minutes, it simply expresses extreme disapproval. Striking something from the minutes removes it entirely. I concur with Mr. Honemann and Mr. Gerber that this is not in order. The presumption in the answer seems to be that this may be accomplished by suspending the rules, but rules which have effect outside the current session may not be suspended. I'm not sure this limitation was fully fleshed out at the time PL was written (it does not appear to be explicitly mentioned in the section of PL on suspending the rules), which may account for this odd response.

I see no reason why not.

Yes, technically the rule is that a motion which is defeated may not be reintroduced until a later session. I did not make the distinction as the OP's question did not appear to be regarding a multiple-day session.

RONR provides, in the section for the Nominating Committee "After the nominating committee has presented its report and before voting for the different offices takes place, the chair must call for further nominations from the floor." (RONR, 11th ed., pg. 435) In the context of RONR, however, a nominating committee is a committee which makes its own recommendations for each office, and is under no obligation to submit any other nominations it receives to the assembly. In some organizations, however, the role of the nominating committee (either in addition to or instead of the role above), is to collect nominations made by mail, and to pass all such nominations on to the assembly. In such a case, notwithstanding the fact that there is a committee called the nominating committee, this seems less analogous to the procedure in RONR for nominations by a committee and more analogous to nominations by mail (RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 437-438), which has no requirement for nominations from the floor.