Joshua Katz

Well, it also ensures unlimited power for the board, but organizations are free to do as they like.

The only time discussion should be happening is if a motion was already made, so main motions would be out of order at that point. However, if your organization has gone off the reservation and is having discussion without a motion, then sure, I guess.

I should add, though, that RONR does discuss a somewhat similar situation: minutes where the next meeting will not be for an extended period of time, or where the next meeting will be, in essence, a new assembly (such as a convention). In those instances, it says a minutes approval committee should be empowered to approve the minutes. Now, it might be too late for that in your case, BUT here's an idea: a committee may produce a report without meeting if the report contains only what all members have separately agreed to. Perhaps your committee members could unanimously agree to appoint such a committee? Others might disagree. A related question: you've had your final meeting, but have you reported yet to the assembly to which you are to report? The committee does not go out of existence until it delivers its final report.

No; as noted, RONR doesn't contemplate committees taking minutes. (The minutes, by the way, are approved, not ratified.) Not really - if you met for the sole purpose of approving the minutes, those minutes would be very short, and could certainly be approved at the same meeting where they are taken. I wonder if you are including more in the minutes than needs to be included. It is usually rare to need to refer to audio for anything other than the exact wording of a motion that you didn't jot down quickly enough. Regardless: Does the law require that the minutes be approved?

Well, the author is an attorney... The board simply must consult with its attorney regarding the choice of a parliamentary authority? There are instances where that is a good idea, but it hardly seems true in general. *** I looked over the proposed rules a bit. I've never seen this particular set before, but I was briefly a member of an organization which adopted (against my advice) a very similar set of rules. It existed for a few months, its meetings were awful, and it went out of existence. That might be a coincidence, but I think the two are related. The rules replace the previous question (2/3 vote) with a request to the chair, who can simply cut off debate - and if the chair chooses not to, that decision is appealable and decided by a majority. This makes a mockery of what "appeal" means. Even simple matters can't be easily handled. The only way to ask a speaker to speak up or use a microphone is to make a request of the chair, and to then appeal. The only way to raise a point of order is in the form of an appeal. These might (might) work when no problems are present. If a matter becomes the least bit complicated or tense, though, these rules are woefully inadequate. I joked above that they are written by an attorney, but attorneys who think that law school (where nothing touching parliamentary procedure is studied) makes them experts in the area are all too common.

Making a motion is the only way a member could add something to the agenda, which is why I mentioned making a motion. Even then, though, the board can vote down the agenda item, which is why I mentioned voting. Is this regarding the agenda for the annual meeting, or the board meetings? "Nonmembers, on the other hand - or a particular non-member or group of nonmembers - can be excluded at any time from part or all of a meeting of a society, or from all of its meetings." p. 644, ll. 29-31. "In contrast, the rules may be suspended to allow a nonmember to speak in debate." p. 263 n*. Of course, if it requires a suspension of the rules to allow a nonmember to speak, then a member has no general right to speak. "A member of an assembly, in the parliamentary sense, as mentioned above, is a person entitled to full participation in its proceedings, that is, as explained in 3 and 4, the right to attend meetings, to make motions, to speak in debate, and to vote." p. 3, ll. 1-5. Then, if RONR is your parliamentary authority, you use its rules when your bylaws are silent. Since they are silent regarding speaking rights, the rules in RONR apply - i.e. no nonmember has such a right, but the board may allow it by motion or rule. Or you can amend your bylaws to give members the right to speak.

Ordinarily, committees do not keep minutes. Since yours does, it would have been ideal to approve them at the last meeting. But given that that wasn't done, I guess there's not much to do done about it now.

Each body *should* approve its own minutes. However, if the general meeting is an annual meeting, the bylaws should provide for the appointment of a minutes approval committee, rather than waiting a year (or more than a quarterly period) to approve the minutes. The minutes would then be read and, as always, subject to change through the motion to amend something previously adopted at the next general meeting (or they can be distributed). The board can be selected as the minutes approval committee.

If the item is not unfinished business, it should not be moved to unfinished business. Why can't you just take action on it when it comes up under Reports? It strikes me that this organization is likely using agendas incorrectly, but without more details it is hard to know what exactly it is doing wrong.

The meeting at which this occurred would be your annual membership meeting, most likely. Yes, the rule on board meetings is clear: non-members of the board have no *right* to speak at board meetings or to make motions, which includes amending the agenda. The board may permit them to speak, or (perhaps) to make motions, although not to vote. At your membership meeting, though, you can amend the bylaws to change this rule, if the organization wishes.

No, the fact that people have been permitted to attend in the past does not mean they can in the future, if the board asserts itself and says no. It would appear there is a custom of permitting attendance, but a motion may override that custom (standing rules are higher ranked than custom). It does mean, though, that it will be something of a fight, and that the membership assembly may, if the bylaws permit it (they probably do) push back against such an action. But that's a political problem, not a rules problem.

"Don't go see that movie. It takes 2 hours! I can just tell you the ending in 30 seconds. What's better, 2 hours or 30 seconds?"

So the proposal is, in effect, to disalign your bylaws from your substantive state laws? An organization is free to do so according to RONR, but that will not absolve it from the legal consequences. But if you're looking for something in RONR telling you you can't change your bylaws, you won't find it - RONR is inferiour to your bylaws. You'll just need to use good old fashioned politics to persuade people that doing so is a bad idea, and that you face consequences outside of these voluntary rules (such as, perhaps, being denied agency certification? I don't know your state, of course.)

600. How did it get to be 600 pages? Because it started with fewer (maybe not 11, but fewer) and then situations came up which the rules could not resolve, or in which the rules provided for unfair outcomes, so additional rules were added. What is better - fairer and thorough, or unfair and less thorough? Well, I have - but you can also, besides reading it, bring it to meetings, and look things up in the rare event that something outside the "norm" arises. Meanwhile, you can read RONRIB to know how to handle the routine bits.

This is not a parliamentary question (at least, not as we use that term here) and so unfortunately I don't know that we'll be of much e hlp on it. It's really a legal question.

For what it's worth, I just returned from a many-hour long meeting which was conducted entirely using special rules - the bylaws contain a parliamentary authority for all but one particular meeting, held annually, which is conducted according to special rules of order. We got done what we needed to get done, but it would have been shorter, I think, if we used RONR, and certainly less confusing.

My assumption was that it was the sort of situation where, e.g., a bank needs to see the minutes.

Then why is it the content of the minutes being amended?

Remind me again: what is the motion used to modify minutes after approval?

Well, they don't have deliberative functions as such, but if members, they are part of a deliberative body. Why is an officer moving a recommendation in his own report different from an officer moving to amend the minutes, to adjourn, or to allocate $500 to paint the clubhouse red when it is not part of his report?

There was once a man who asked his wife why she always cut off the ends of the pot roast before she put it in the pan...

How does your board get elected? Often people who are not part of a deliberative body, but are impacted by its decisions, wish to observe the deliberations of that body. Or, at least, it is something of a check on power to permit them to do so, even if they don't do so often.

Well, I agree with the second part of this, but can't figure out what the word "No" is doing there.

The reporting member of a committee generally moves the committee's recommendations. Officers, by contrast, do not move their own recommendations in their reports. It seems as though these concepts are getting confused because many officers also chair committees - the rule about officer reports, though, applies only to officer reports, not committee reports.

Agreeing with Mr. Harrison, the answer to both questions is, therefore, yes.