Joshua Katz

No, you move to amend the agenda while it is pending for approval. Or, failing that, you can move to amend it after adoption, but the vote threshold will be higher.

It is a good way to make meetings last longer by encouraging people to say in debate "if this is voted down, I will move..." Maybe they enjoy meetings?

This seems to depend on your bylaws. In general, the board need not approve what the membership decides, and may not reverse what the membership decides. But your organization may have special rules for the budget.

It seems pretty clear to me why they want to do it - "members" are required to do thinks like respond to alarms and attend training, while members of the auxiliary generally are not.

Only a few. I was at a town meeting where a committee presented a report and recommendation (with which I strongly disagreed, by the way). The first speaker in opposition proceeded to berate the committee, accuse every committee member of self-dealing, and so on. The room arrangement was odd - speakers had to go to the microphone, but it was placed so that they were addressing the chair but not the assembly. He had positioned himself in front of the microphone, so the only way for me to get to the microphone was to come up behind him. The chair was hearing impaired, so trying to raise a point of order from my seat wouldn't have worked. So I walked up and raised a point of order. He turned and shouted in my face, then later threatened me and said "if you ever walk up behind me again, I'll punch you." I responded that the Chief of Police was listening (who was also First Selectman, and my campaign buddy). That ended the matter pretty quickly. The chair ruled my point of order well-taken, and he stopped speaking because he had nothing to say other than insults.

Yes, this is what I meant by the discussion of rights.

While it varies with the audience, my most common "pitch" is that properly-used parliamentary procedure is a way to go home. Organizations exist to do things other than meetings - bowling tournaments, win elections, fight fires, etc. Yet they spend hours at meetings because they do not use a procedure that maximizes efficiency. Parliamentary procedure can help with that - it can lead to focused decision-making and discussions, keep things on track, and get you home at a reasonable hour. Then I move on to rights - in particular, the right of the majority to make decisions, but only after the minority has its right to be heard (unless accelerated by a 2/3 vote), and only when those decisions do not infringe the rights of absentees or a minority too small to protect itself, and finally, with respect for the right of the organization itself to stability, which allows it to achieve its purpose. I joined an organization in 2007 with only a tangential relationship to RONR. We met monthly, and, to be honest, we weren't doing much, and there wasn't much to talk about, yet our meetings ran well over the 2 hours allotted - we would meet at 7, and the library closed at 9, so we'd move to a coffee shop and continue for another hour or so. Two of us, having gained experience with RONR from a national convention, started pushing the use of parliamentary procedure at meetings. Suddenly, our meetings were an hour long, and we were getting more done - and we made better decisions, leading to more success in our operations. Another example: I joined another organization in, I think, 2013. The meetings also ran quite long, but I chose not to speak up at the time. Eventually, I saw the chair tell a member that there was no such thing as a motion to postpone indefinitely, and decided to get involved by talking about RONR outside of meetings. I became the "member parliamentarian," then was elected secretary. I started attaching, to the same email as the draft minutes, short discussions of relevant parliamentary issues, with a focus on efficiency. I purchased the yellow cards to give out at meetings, as well as copies of You, The Member. I held office hours where members could ask how to achieve parliamentary goals, how to make the motions they wanted to make, etc. I met with the chair before each meeting to go over the rules regarding the things I thought were likely. I was routinely ignored. This one didn't work out as well - the chair decided, at a fundraiser (where members had signed up to work various shifts) to walk around, hand-pick a number of people equal to a "quorum" and hold a meeting on-the-spot, without notice, that authorized the expenditure of thousands of dollars. Members asked me if that was right, I told them it wasn't, a member raised a point of order that the expenditures were not properly authorized, but the organization upheld the chair's ruling that they were. I gave notice that I was resigning as parliamentarian because I could not advise an organization that did not care for rules that protect, in this case, the majority. (The quorum number was quite low, so only a small minority was involved in the decision.) A third thing I push on is the nature of an organization - this ties into the rights discussion. The nature if that we wind up with common property, bought with pooled money. Sometimes, we have other resources, such as tax funding, sometimes not. But the fact is, we need to make decisions that respect our stewardship over our resources. Parliamentary procedure is a way to respect everyone's opinion while making efficient decisions.

Perhaps. I'd still be curious about the wording - if it actually says that members can 'place requests' to address the board, I still think the board can knock it off the agenda. It seems like a fact-intensive question to me.

I agree, but on the facts here, is there any reason to make this assumption? It sounds like a request from a non-board member, so it's not clear to me why the board had to take it up. Even if it's on the agenda, the board could amend the agenda and not take it up.

There are three fiduciary duties: the duty of care (usually exculpated), the duty of loyalty, and the duty of good faith. A failure to follow the bylaws may, in some circumstances, make out a case for a breach of the duty of good faith because, in most states, the corporate statutes require the board to obey the bylaws. That is assuming, of course, that there is a fiduciary relationship to begin with. In a stock corporation, the board owes fiduciary duties. In other cases, it is less clear. In any case, it means nothing from a parliamentary standpoint. If you want to complain about a fiduciary breach, you need to consult an attorney and bring a suit, likely a derivative suit.

I would ask, as a courtesy, that you refrain from editing the entirety of a message I have replied to. In general, we ask people to indicate the edits made when editing a post more than a few moments later.

I have absolutely no context to understand this.

I trust I get to remain an RP, but will I need to recredential if I want to do PRP?

I haven't heard anything about the RP revision, but I hope you enjoyed the revised membership exam. I served on that committee.

So long as the motion to vote by ballot was seconded, the chair is responsible to put the question to the assembly. It is not out of order to move to vote by ballot. The member, though, should purchase a copy of RONR instead of relying on wikipedia.

It takes nothing in particular to be an unofficial parliamentarian, except study and self-confidence (and others having confidence). As for an official parliamentarian, the National Association of Parliamentarians offers a membership exam to join, a 5-part test (I think, if memory serves) to be a Registered Parliamentarian, and a several-day course and evaluation to become a Professional Registered Parliamentarian. I suppose it's a matter of judgment as to which of the latter two makes one "official." I am a Registered Parliamentarian because I have not been able to schedule a class (I was scheduled to take one, and paid for it, but then work conflicted and I couldn't make it.)

Yes, although I'm not sure that's a lesson that should have been needed.

Sigh. We got him off the stage as quickly as we could.

I find a good response when someone asserts that RONR/parliamentary procedure requires/forbids something is to ask for a page number, rather than doing the research yourself.

I think I misread the original question and thought the complaints were about a board meeting. Seeing that they are about a membership meeting, I am more confused as to what the complaint is. Nonetheless, I stand by my description of the process to be followed.

I'm a little confused. What is the request? Your bylaw is a little ambiguous in that it says "subject to the approval of the membership" but it does not say just how that approval works - is it passive or active, for instance? I'm not sure if the complaint has any merit or not, since the board can set the dues and fees subject to this approval - the process has to start in some way. In any event, though, the member can only raise the point of order at a meeting, not outside of one. So you have no obligation to correct it unless you rule the point of order well taken, or a contrary ruling is overruled on appeal.

Unless the bylaws say otherwise.

Am I the only one missing the term limit in the paraphrase of the term of office?

The bylaws could also be amended to say "the assembly may allow visitors in the meeting room by a majority vote."

I disagree. Continuing confusion is not a continuing breach (if it were, most organizations would have continuing breaches at all times). The breach here was the act of considering the motion, and that's one for the history books (particularly since the out of order motion failed). I agree that the right move, given that a majority didn't want to "reaffirm" the statement, is to take up a motion to rescind, which either will be adopted, or not, and that rescinding the (not adopted) motion to reaffirm is both out of order and nonsensical. On the rest, I don't think I completely disagree, but I think the text is clear - it creates an ambiguous situation. Why the text felt compelled to mention that fact is interesting, but it doesn't make the text go away. And, for what it's worth, I think even the sophisticated member is not just confused, but has a good point in asking how a position taken by the organization is still in effect after the vote to reaffirm failed. That is, I don't think the result of the failure of such a vote is just confusion - I think there's a reasonable case (at least where the motion to reaffirm did not fail on a tie vote) that something material actually happened. I don't think the text says ambiguity is created because members might be confused, but because the organization will have now voted in a manner incompatible with a previous vote, but without using one of the established motions that bring a matter again before the assembly. I think the text is recognizing that, in fact, the members have, through their votes, expressed something about their desires, and it was not "keep this statement in effect." But what it was is, well, ambiguous.