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Dfredc

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Everything posted by Dfredc

  1. Thank you, everyone. It appears the board itself isn't sure how they want to proceed. Our Bylaws provide two actions (discipline -basically a slap on the wrist that says, "bad boy") or to proceed with the removal of the Secretary. The discipline ironically requires a 2/3 vote of the assembly while removal of a board member is a majority vote (after a petition of 50% of the assembly or a 2/3 vote of the executive board). I sent out an email to the assembly explaining the breach and have had little response, so I'm not sure the assembly cares. Guess we'll just see what the board decides to do.
  2. The secretary of the board just sent out an email to the entire assembly about the supposed actions that took place in executive session of the board. Apparently, he claims that he was being unduly targeted for not performing his duties as they should be, and was apparently asked to resign. This is a pretty serious breach of etiquette, correct? Wouldn't this alone be grounds for removal from office?
  3. Thank you! This clears it up nicely for me.
  4. "Analogous to the way I assume the Article was added: by a motion to Amend the bylaws by inserting the Article." This is exactly how they were added to the Bylaws. Thank you for your help.
  5. So, essentially we approve the Bylaws with the Standing Committees Article removed from them, correct.
  6. Lol, which is what I feared. Thankfully a majority of the members see the problems created by the Article in our Bylaws that created the committees. Our task now is to sway a sufficient amount of those that remain to repeal the Bylaws amendment that created the Standing Committees (problems not just with the discussed committee but a number of them). Our organization survived just fine without them for decades, and I'm confident it can again. Thank you, everyone, for your help, I appreciate it!
  7. These are the Bylaws of the committee pertaining to membership: "This committee shall have a chair and a secretary elected by the committee members at its organizational meeting which will be held every two years after the [main assembly] meeting has conducted business pursuant to Article XVIII of the [main assembly] Bylaws. Membership in this committee is available to all [main assembly] members and board members of the [main assembly] and to all [volunteers that reside in the county] who affiliate solely with [the main assembly's goals]. who sign up to be a member at a meeting called by the [main assembly] Chair, or who attend the committee meetings monthly, or who participate in the committee's activities" It's like they were created to intentionally horrible.
  8. The Executive Board suspended the committee in question citing this section of the Bylaws: "Section 2.Rules of Governance for Standing Committees: a) In addition to the above duties, each committee shall have the duty to carry out any directive of the Executive Board and/or [the main assembly], and no committee shall take any action without the approval granted in its charter or of the Executive Board or [the main assembly]. In the event of conflicting directives or approvals between these two bodies, the directives and approvals from the [the main assembly] shall stand." The problem is that the rogue chair is ignoring the suspension claiming the board has no authority to do so. He is holding a monthly meeting of the committee 11 days before the next Quarterly Business meeting of the main assembly. My thinking was to attempt to remove him as chair at the committee meeting. What a complete mess this is.
  9. The Bylaws state that they must give a quarterly report the assembly at large (the whole of the members). So, if I understand what you are saying because they report to the main assembly, the main assembly would be able to "amend their membership roster, instruct them, discharge them from consideration of certain matters, and similar actions." What RONR citation could be used? And would this be just a simple motion for the assembly to consider and pass by majority vote?
  10. This is the truth, no one appointed them, The committees were created by a Bylaws amendment about two years ago (before I was a member of the organization) and the members of the assembly decided what committee they wanted to be on, they then elected their own chair. The Bylaws allowed the committees to write their own membership requirements (sigh) so no two committees have the same membership rules. Subsequently, volunteers were allowed to join the committees that they wanted to join. I am pushing for a total repeal of the amendment but getting 2/3 vote on that may be tough. Ironically the organization ran just fine for its entire existence without standing committees and could easily do so again.
  11. This is my main objective at the moment (well other than removing the rouge chai of the standing committee), the assembly needs to amend the bylaws pertaining to standing committees, I see so many potential pitfalls in them - the membership issue being just one.
  12. The members of the committee are self-selected (if that's a term) the Bylaws created the standing committees (Bylaws amendment about two years ago created them) and they are open to any member of the organization and any interested volunteers. The bylaws allow the committees to create their own rules on their own committees for their standing committee for membership requirements. The committee in question's membership rules that you have to attend one meeting and sign up to be a member. Then you are a member at the next meeting. The committees are instructed by the organization Bylaws to "reorganize every two years" electing a new chairman and secretary. This would be the case. So the committee itself will need to remove the chair. Would the motion be " I move to remove [name of chair] as chair and elect a new chairman?"
  13. This is most helpful, thank you! Since he was elected by the committee (not appointed by the assembly) then the only way to remove him would be for the committee itself to do so, i.e. make a motion to remove him as chair and elect someone else, correct? OR for the assembly to amend the Bylaws of the organization (prior notice, 2/3 to pass?) to require that only members of the organization can be chairman of committees. Am I seeing this correctly?
  14. The committee did indeed elect the chair. How could one go about removing someone from the committee? Does the Executive Board have the power to do this or do the members of the committee vote to just remove him from the committee and thus vacate the chair? I suspect if he was removed as the chair he would stomp off of the committee in a huff. This position is the only thing tying him to the organization right now, and his ego. He has stated to me in a personal email within the past month that he will no longer attend the organization's events or financially donate to it... then he showed up at the committee meeting to elect a chair and got elected by 3 votes.
  15. The standing committee's section of our Bylaws is a real mess if you ask me, that aside, there are no procedures outlined for removing a committee chair. The chairs weren't appointed or selected by the society (I know, rolling my eyes) but were elected by the committees themselves (which are a mix of members and non-members of the society). So, in this case, how would we on the committee move forward to remove the chair? Would a simple motion suffice, and take a vote? "Move to remove Joe Smith as Chairman and elect a new chair?" This current chair in the past has just ignored motions and threatened to "remove" anyone from the meeting that disrupts. Believe me when I say there have been no disruptions other than disagreeing with his actions (he thinks he *is* the committee and has made decisions without even consulting the rest of us). Since he was elected the membership of the committee has grown and the new numbers are no longer in his favor. It's been frustrating, to say the least.
  16. As questions arise I seem to need more help/understanding. >Our Bylaws allow non-members to be on standing committees and for some (not all) of the committees to allow a non-member of the organization to be a Chair of the committee (voted on by members of the committee). The Bylaws have a Code of Conduct and expect it's members and Executive Board to follow them, giving specific procedures to take if a member or an e-board member is going to be disciplined for failure to follow the Code. Can the assembly discipline a committee chair if he/she violates the Code of conduct? They aren't members of the society... or are they by virtue of holding the position of the Chair of a standing committee (ex-officio)?
  17. Thank you. You have made this perfectly clear to me and I believe I now understand, and concur with your conclusions and suggestions. You have been a tremendous help and I greatly appreciate it.
  18. It would take ⅔ of the membership to do that but it may be possible.
  19. Thank you. So essentially my ignorance/misunderstanding of the Bylaws (and apparently the majority of the general assemly's misunderstanding) left us with no real recoarse to correct what we saw as an incorrect application of the Bylaws other than amending the Bylaws. If amended to remove the Outreach Committee (not include it in the standing committees) then that would be a viable solution, correct? P. S. If this reply doesn't show up as from the op it is because I am posting from my phone and not my computer.
  20. Okay, I think you all are getting the gist of what happened, But to be sure, and hopefully, to make things more clear I will bullet point what happened, All references are from the screencap at the top of the thread. I also will add additional background information. The general assembly reorganizes ever two years. The standing committees were created last year (before I became a member of the general assembly) and were adopted by the general assembly 3/4 of the way through the 2-year term. They were organized the following month. General assembly holds it's bi-annual reorg meeting in December, new members (and continuing members vote and adopt new Bylaws. In this case, they were without change (or little change) from the previous bylaws, the new executive board is elected at this time. The election was close, the previous Chairman was controversial, and his chosen successor lost the election (likely because he was so controversial). The former chairman refuses to hand over intellectual properties of the organization, i.e., email server access, fb pages, mailing lists, etc. It took the new executive board over two months to finally gain complete access. The call to reorganize the standing committees could not go out within the bylaws designated timeline of 45 days. Once it was possible all previous chairs issued a call to reorganize their standing committees except the Outreach committee, chaired by a "loyalist" to the previous controversial chairman. That committee sent out a personal emailed call to reorg to only 45 people - all loyalist to the former chair. We have no way of knowing if these people were previous members of the committee because our bylaws lack the instruction to make that known to the general assembly. (Crazy, I know). The list became known when a copy of that call to reorg was obtained and the email addresses attached to it. All were current or former members of the general assembly and the former general assembly chair (who is not a current member of the general assembly}. (Copied from above, edits and additional info in brackets) "We have a standing committee that our Bylaws state is to be reorganized every two years with a new call to the [general assembly] to vote on a new chair [at the standing committee reorg meeting]. The bylaws state "any who wish to participate at the organizational meeting." The issue is that the previous chair did not notify all the members of [the general assembly] when that meeting was happening. So a new chair was elected with only a fraction of members being notified (I was not one of them [and desired to be in the committee]). I wish to make a motion to have the committee suspended until a new meeting is called by the chair of the [general] assembly so that he can issue it to every member of the organization. I was made aware of the issue when the agenda for the upcoming meeting had the "new" chair listed as reporting for the committee. When I spoke to our [current] chairman about the issue, he told me to make the motion" The new chair of that committee that was elected was the controversial former chair of the general assembly, as all the "members" were loyalists to him. Again we have no way of knowing who the members were. I was under the impression (as I believe most of the general assembly was) that at a reorg meeting everyone in attendance that was interested in being a member of the standing committee could participate and vote for the new chairman of the standing committee. Similar to what is done at the general assemblies reorg, though there, members of the general assembly *are* chosen before the reorg meeting of the general assembly. I made my motion accordingly with that presumption. The motion was, "I move that the reorganization vote of the Outreach Committee be considered null and void because a proper call for the meeting was not issued, therefore, a new meeting should be called by the Chairman [name of current general assembly chairman]. I spoke to the motion using Article 18, Section 2.a) as the authority for the assembly to enact the proposed motion. And Article 18, Section 2.G giving the assembly the cause for the proposed motion. Concluding with, “I would like to see a fair call made by our chairman so that every member of the assembly can be afforded the opportunity to volunteer for the Outreach Committee and participate in an election for its chairman." Three spoke in opposition, the old chairman claiming to have sent the email to everyone (I rebutted stating I had a copy of the email that identifies only 45 being "invited to participate", the Bylaws Committee chair stating that he did not believe the assembly had the authority to do it and another member that said all the committees should be scrapped because none of them met the required 45 day time frame. [Not all members knew the reason why that happened, and I did not want to open that can of worms]. No one spoke against it saying even if every one of the general assembly came, *only* those that were previous members would be allowed to vote. Not even the Bylaws chairman that I later found out knew about this and in fact, enforced it in his reorg meeting. Now the events of the Standing Committee that I posted most recently take place earlier this week. Have I made it more clear (I hope)? does it alter or confirm more solidly your conclusions?
  21. Interesting, thanks for your honesty. So do you agree with Josh Martin that the general assembly's Chairman was wrong in his interpretation that the section being used to deny members (of the general assembly) to vote (in the reorg meeting) should be interpreted as inclusive, not exclusive?
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