Joshua Katz

At least 3 of us have (or are).

Mr. Brian made a motion which, after debate and amendment, read "To allocate $1,000 to buy two sets of tools." Yes, the second vote is necessary. Just because the assembly would rather consider $1,000 than $500 doesn't mean the assembly has decided to spend anything at all.

Hold on just a second. Does your board have the power to amend the bylaws? Because it sounds like you just said your board intends to vote on whether or not to give itself power that currently belongs to the membership. Also, as Mr. Novosielski mentioned supra, resignations need to be accepted by the membership. As a procedural note, also keep in mind that filling vacancies is different from filling positions that are not filled by general elections. The latter sounds like an incomplete election, whereas the former arises after the positions have been filled. But the board cannot grant itself the power to do either.

Yes, unless it happens to violate other rules of your organization (such as notice requirements).

That's why he's practicing.

It sounds like someone is practicing to be chair.

I agree it's a rule of order, but I'm worried (partly because I've given possibly contradictory advice on related matters) that it may be a rule that protects absentees. It may even protect a minority less than 1/3 (say, if there's a single candidate and less than 1/3 actually like them).

What does it mean to 'set'? Judges give pardons? Right. But Congress can repeal laws. Why not, just as you want to let boards lower dues to 0 for one member only, let the Congress repeal a law for one person only? So, on election night, seeing that the state will go to Trump, the Democratic state legislature can quickly meet and pass a bill allowing the Democratic Governor to appoint the electors?

So your view is that exempting a member (say, board members and their friends) from paying dues is implied by the power to lower dues across the board? Does Congress' power to repeal laws allow it to give pardons? Since the states can select the electors in any manner their legislatures choose, can the state legislature overturn the result of the vote, if they chose to select them by a vote of the people?

It's really a bylaws interpretation question, but in my opinion, no.

Oh no, getting a lawyer involved tends to make bylaws worse...

Again, to resign from an officer position (and board member is considered an officer) requires permission of the appropriate body, particularly if one wishes to remain a member of the organization. While the organization cannot make someone serve (unlike a legislative body in certain circumstances), it can certainly refuse to grant permission not to serve, and hence not allow the person to remain a member if they refuse to do so. An acknowledgement would be a motion to accept the resignation.

Oh boy. Then don't do it. I would advise the President to restore order rather than walking out. The President has no authority in these circumstances to "call" the meeting. Right, clearly you can't make someone stay in their position. The purpose of accepting a resignation is two-fold. First, a resignation from, say, a board position without leaving the organization is a request to be excused from a duty. They are asking to be allowed to keep the remainder of their membership. Second, even if they are resigning from all contact with the organization, until you accept it they can take it back. Why should they be unable to come back into that position if you haven't acknowledged their leaving it?

Oh boy, I've been down this road before. It's not pretty. I'd suggest you start with the minutes, and see if there is agreement that they are correct. The bylaws can be reconstructed from there.

Elect a chair pro tem (and secretary pro tem) at the meeting.

I realize Toastmasters uses RONR - as you may have guessed from my post, I'm a member (even won my chapter Table Topics competition one year). However, RONR provides the rules of order for meetings in the RONR sense - which means a meeting where business may validly be conducted. I don't think it would be close to in order to do either of the things you mention - changing the purpose or suspending the rules - any more than it would be in order to do that while sitting around your kitchen table with a few members. Toastmasters may call the regularly scheduled events where speeches are given and evaluations conducted a meeting, just like I call it a meeting when I arrange a time to meet with a professor, but that doesn't make it a place and time to conduct the business of the organization. That is reserved for your business meetings.

Now I understand. Were you the Toastmaster? Regardless, your 'regular meetings' are not meetings in the RONR sense, and no business can be validly conducted during them. As such, the procedures for offenses during a meeting (645-49) are not applicable. Nothing in RONR, really, is applicable - but Toastmasters has bylaws, and your chapter may have your own, that should contain some applicable rules to disruptions during a 'meeting.' What is applicable, though, is strong presiding. I have never had to call the police, although I considered it a possibility one time when I had to interpret rather spotty rules about who may vote - I have found that resisting anger, restrained use of the gavel, and adopting a no-compromise, no-discussion stance can resolve a surprising number of situations. By aggressive, I really mean assertive. If you let yourself get angry, or if you debate with people disrupting a meeting, things tend to go wrong. I once watched a rather skilled chair (well, not terribly skilled at parliamentary procedure, but very skilled at presiding) calm down roughly 1,000 people after a candidate for a board position took advantage of the fact that the convention was televised nationally to perform a strip show. I don't think I could have done that, but apparently it can be done. I imagine the general evaluation must have been interesting that night.

I don't know what you mean by this. What is a regular meeting, if not a time to conduct business? It sounds like you were chairing the meeting. If so, you can probably be more aggressive in dealing with people trying to take over your meeting. Study the procedures for offenses during a meeting.

I dunno. You could screen-shot it.

Well, that's interesting. Presumably, you could have just amended the bylaws, with the intent of changing them back later.

It is lonely at the top. I joined an organization, was asked to be member parliamentarian because people knew things weren't being done right and rights were being violated - and then people got upset when things started changing. Well, there are more interesting questions here than the one you opened with. Depending on what exactly happened when you agreed to leave things as is, you may have elected your current officers to a new term already, or you may not have any officers at the moment; I wouldn't want to hazard a guess. If that's all your bylaws say about elections, they should be amended to say when the election is held - we know when the nominating committee reports (although it should not be called a "slate" if the positions are voted on separately), we know when terms begin, but we don't know when they're supposed to be elected. The default procedure in RONR for amending bylaws is that it requires previous notice and a 2/3 vote, or else a vote of the majority of the entire membership. RONR also states that organizations should adopt their own procedures for amending their bylaws (as you did), and suggests that they be at least as burdensome as the default rules (yours is far easier). Essentially, it is as easy to amend your bylaws as to pass any regular motion. If any motion is proposed that is in conflict with the bylaws, all the mover needs to do is move to amend the bylaws, and with no greater burden than it would take to pass the motion, they can be amended. This creates instability in the organization, since members have no reason to believe that the bylaws provide some sort of structure they can count on if they do not attend a meeting. People can, in actuality, do whatever they want at a meeting, since if a majority of those present want to do anything, it is irrelevant that the bylaws say not to, as that same group can amend them.

Unfinished business is things that were postponed, that were pending at adjournment other than special orders, were unfinished business at the last meeting but not taken up, or were general orders for the previous meeting but not taken up. I'm not sure what happened at your last meeting, but ordinarily you don't need to have such a discussion, since terms of office and times that elections are held are specified in your bylaws. If all you did was talk about it, it's new business. If you took some action at the last meeting to make it a general order for this meeting, it would go with unfinished business and general orders. How exactly did this get decided, and what do your bylaws say on the matter? What do your bylaws say about terms of office and elections? That should answer your question about when the new officers take office. If not, then RONR provides that they take office immediately on their election if present (as long as they don't decline), or if absent but has consented, or else when notified (and doesn't decline). Allowing bylaws to be amended by a majority vote is highly unusual. What exactly do to the bylaws say about amendment (precise language)? You can find p. 121 by purchasing Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised, 11th edition. It can be purchased from the organization that runs this website, from the National Association of Parliamentarians, your local bookshop (probably), or Amazon. It makes great leisure time reading! In any case, it sounds likely that notice isn't relevant for this question, and like you don't have time to give notice anyway, so I won't summarize the rules for notice at this point.

There is no such thing as "old business." There is such a thing as "unfinished business," but it is highly unlikely that your election is unfinished business. What are your rules for amending the bylaws? If you have no rules, it requires notice and a 2/3 vote in the default rules (or a vote of a majority of the entire membership). You can find requirements for giving notice on p. 121; of course, the method of doing so at the previous meeting is inapplicable. You'll need to determine for yourself if notice can be given in time for the next meeting. You may have other provisions in your own rules, of course. Since bylaw amendments take effect immediately (unless you have rules to the contrary), there is no reason you can't make this amendment prior to the election. There is no need to change the order of business (if there were, you'd use the motion to suspend the rules, or you could adopt an agenda) since the election is most likely not unfinished business. Even if it is, you could simply move to postpone to a definite time, or, I suppose, to lay on the table the election and all intervening motions until the bylaw amendment is reached (assuming an agenda has been adopted with the election prior to the bylaw amendment, although you could also just not do that, or amend the agenda while pending, or amend it even after adoption by a 2/3 vote).

A fair question. I'm told that in some states, anyone who feels like it can rewrite the bylaws, make themselves officers for life, and redefine membership in such a case. But I'm told that by buffoons, liars, and crazy people, and by those they have convinced, so it's probably not correct.

Thank you.