hswolfmaniac

 Today I submitted my letter for amendment. In speaking to the adjutant when I gave him the letter, I discovered that the commander is the one typing the minutes. The adjutant says he types too slow in typing the minutes. During our conversation, the adjutant said he needed to verify what I had submitted, and I told him to do just that. After I left the adjutant, I was speaking to another individual outside when the commander came to me and became confrontational. He emphatically said he was not going to send any letter of notice to over 400 of our members. I reminded him he does not have the authority to stop in sending the notice. There were a few expletives he used, but in the end I reinforced my position. (I will be notifying our District Commander of the Post Commander's obvious refusal to take corrective action.) He even went so far as to say he could say something about what was said in the minutes, but I told him that it still cannot be included in the minutes. He was very hostile towards me.

On ‎3‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 12:21 AM, Joshua Katz said:

First, none of what you've described belongs in the minutes. Minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not what was said at the meeting, and certainly not what was said outside the meeting. 

Second, yes, you can move to amend the minutes by use of "amend something previously adopted" (anyone care to object to the name of this motion?). This requires a 2/3 vote, a majority of the entire membership voting in the affirmative, or a majority vote with notice, any one of which will suffice. 

In the future, you should try to make your amendments, particularly in a case like this where accuracy is immaterial because none of it belongs in the minutes anyway, when the minutes are first pending for approval, because then it will require only a majority vote. 

My guess, by the way, is that your organization is including much in the minutes that does not belong there. I make that guess because, if anyone at all can think that conversations outside of meetings belong in the minutes, it strikes me as likely that conversations during meetings are going into the minutes; they don't belong there, either.

Yes, they are.

10 hours ago, Guest Zev said:

The actual words in the minutes, however, are not physically removed but are deleted only by way of mentioning them in a later set of minutes. The thing that worries me is if the intention of these inclusions, whether accurate or not, is to bring disrepute or somehow disparage you or others. If you do not move a motion to censure the commander then this type of thing may happen again.

Thank you, Zev. I thought of what he did after the meeting also. I believe he included those after-meeting comments in order to cause ill feelings towards me. Censuring the commander is not a bad idea. I'll speak to the Department Quartermaster on the subject of censure. I'm sure he would be able to provide me with the proper process.

Thanks again, Zev.

14 minutes ago, Gary Novosielski said:

You don't need to declare which threshold you are using.  You vote, and see if any if the thresholds are achieved.  Of course if you have time to give previous notice, you'll help yourself by allowing the lower threshold to be used.

Thanks, Gary. I'll contact the adjutant, and request he notify the membership of my intentions. Whether or not he notifies the membership, I will have no control of that even though I know he must comply with my request. When I contact him I will be specific in my request so there will be no confusion of my intentions.

14 minutes ago, Joshua Katz said:

No, the full membership is all the members, not the average meeting attendance. Does your organization have a roster of members, that is, of all people entitled to attend and participate in meetings? The "entire membership" is everyone on the list, and a majority of the entire membership is more than half the number of people on that list.

There is a roster, but I do not have access to it. Some (or the majority) of our members are elderly, some live out of state or live too far away from our location to be able to attend our monthly meetings. I'll have to decide which route to go. The most viable option is the 2/3 vote, but I may not have enough supporters.

9 minutes ago, Gary Novosielski said:

The "entire membership" includes all members, present and absent, regardless of how "active" they may be.  A pulse is all that's required.  But that is only one option. The other two are

• a majority vote (of those present and voting) if prior notice of your intent to make that motion is given, or
• a 2/3 vote (of those present and voting) if notice has not been given.

Meeting any one of the three thresholds is enough to pass the motion.

Thank you for the clarification, Gary.

6 minutes ago, Joshua Katz said:

"Entire membership" means the full membership of the body which is meeting (which is the latter, presumably, if this is a membership meeting, and is the total number of people on the board if it's a board meeting), not those present at the meeting. 

On the average, our meeting attendance is between +/-20 to 30 members so they would be considered "the full membership...," is that correct?

8 minutes ago, Atul Kapur said:

You are looking at the correct motion to use: Amend Something Previously Adopted. The motion can be used to correct errors in minutes, even years after they were approved. So you definitely could.

You'll want to read Section 48 on Minutes (p.468 and following). Page 468, lines 17-18 say, "...the minutes should contain mainly a record of what was done at the meeting..."

Discussions held after the meeting don't belong in the minutes of the meeting. The Commander could inform the meeting about the discussions with the Quartermaster as part of the Officer's Report at the next meeting.

Thank you, Atul. I will read those pages.

4 minutes ago, Joshua Katz said:

First, none of what you've described belongs in the minutes. Minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not what was said at the meeting, and certainly not what was said outside the meeting. 

Second, yes, you can move to amend the minutes by use of "amend something previously adopted" (anyone care to object to the name of this motion?). This requires a 2/3 vote, a majority of the entire membership voting in the affirmative, or a majority vote with notice, any one of which will suffice. 

In the future, you should try to make your amendments, particularly in a case like this where accuracy is immaterial because none of it belongs in the minutes anyway, when the minutes are first pending for approval, because then it will require only a majority vote. 

My guess, by the way, is that your organization is including much in the minutes that does not belong there. I make that guess because, if anyone at all can think that conversations outside of meetings belong in the minutes, it strikes me as likely that conversations during meetings are going into the minutes; they don't belong there, either.

Thank you Joshua. I'll have to remember what you've suggested in the future. Does the "entire membership" reflect those present at the next meeting or the total number of active members in our local organization?

There was a meeting tonight where the minutes of the previous month's minutes were read; however, the commander (chairperson) added notes that did not occur during last month's meeting. He added a conversation he and our Department Quartermaster (and the Quartermaster and I) had after the conclusion of the last meeting and via email nor did the conversation occur in our meeting facility. Our adjutant (secretary) was absent from our last meeting so I was surprised he (adjutant) was reading something that had occurred after the meeting. The impression I got from the reading of the minutes was that the commander typed up the minutes. (It was too accurate for the adjutant to have typed it up.) Is the commander allowed to include a conversation that was not a matter of record during the meeting? The minutes were approved as read, but I still had my doubts on what the commander did and included in the minutes. Am I able to request that portion of the minutes be amended, rescinded or expunged at our next meeting by having those comments removed? I looked at RONR, 11th Ed., pages 305-310, subparagraph 35, but I am uncertain if I could or if I should.

48 minutes ago, Joshua Katz said:

Oh, and if you want to demonstrate how stupid their claims are, just get 5 friends together and vote not to show the Superbowl, then send them an email saying it's truly unfortunate if that upsets them.  Or, you know, get 5 friends together and vote to sell all the organization's property and split the money amongst the 5 of you, then ask why that is improper.

Very enlightening.

2 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

The supposed action they took is utter nonsense.  A meeting does not consist of hand-selecting a number of people equal to a quorum and deciding whatever you want.  That is the opposite of the deliberative process.  Your organization made a decision - not to show any games - and that others are unhappy about it is, indeed, unfortunate, but their nonsensical behavior changes nothing.

Thank you for your comments. Enlightening.

10 hours ago, J. J. said:

I would suggest you do a bit more redacting, and take the ones that have there down.  There is identifying information (and yes, I have found identifying information that should have been redacted in FBI background checks). 

The first line says:  "A quorum of only those present ... "  A quorum is the number of members needed to conduct a meeting, so that line is nonsense. 

Unless your bylaws say differently, the board, or some group of members, are bound by the decisions of the member's meeting (p. 483, ll. 9-13).  Technically, the people forcing football on the group could be subject to disciplinary action.

 

 

Thank you for the reference. That helps.