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Roman.76

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  1. If the bylaws provide a provision for an officer to be ex officio a member of all committees (except any nominating committee and disciplinary committee), can that officer be appointed as a "regular" member of the committee by the appointing authority (in this case the President)? In a related situation, if the President is ex officio a member of all committees, can he appoint himself (or can the society appoint him) to a committee, making him a "regular" member? (I can see either one of the above situations being desired by a society so that the officer who is ex officio a member of a committee could be appointed to serve as either the committee chairman or a regular member, imposing upon him the obligations of committee membership.)
  2. Assume the President is authorized by rule to draft the agenda for the regular meetings of an organized society. The rule allows members to submit items to the President as well as for the President to include other items to be listed on the draft agenda, which is subject to approval at the beginning of the meeting. Under each agenda item title, the name of the item's requester is listed. For example: . . . 4. Authorize the purchase of _____ in the amount of _____ for the society's annual party. Requested by [First & Last Name] . . . To clarify, in this case, the use of agenda items does not automatically bring the question before the assembly. The item of business still requires a motion and a second for it to be considered and put to a vote. During the meeting, the President serves as the chair. Assume the above item was requested by the President (and his name is listed below the item), does that then make the chair biased and breach his/her duty to remain impartial as the presiding officer? If so, should the President relinquish the chair when that item of business arises in the order of the agenda? I appreciate everyone's thoughts in advance!
  3. Gotcha. So since the Board adopted a special rule of order to establish its order of business, the Board has to adhere to the order listed in RONR. That would deem Special Rule of Order No. 1 void. However, the membership would be permitted to adopt a special rule of order and establish the order of business for the Board. The Board can still adopt an agenda if it wishes to. Did I get that right?
  4. I see what you're saying. The Board might not fully understand the significant differences between an order of business and an agenda. 1. This is a Board of Directors or a local sports league. The Board's regular meetings are once a month (per the Constitution). 2. Yes, the Constitution establishes RONR as the parliamentary authority. 3. Below are the Special Rules of Order that the Board has adopted regarding this topic: 1. The order of business for agendas for regular meetings of the Board shall be as follows: Call to Order Prayer 1. Adoption of the Agenda 2. Approval of the Minutes 3. Reports of Officers 4. Special Orders 5. Unfinished Business and General Orders 6. New Business 7. Announcements Adjourn 2. The President or his or her designee is responsible for drafting the agenda for regular meetings of the Board, with the authority to include specific items of business to be considered under “New Business.” The agenda is subject to adoption and amendment by the Board during “Adoption of the Agenda.” 3. The President or his or her designee shall send the draft agenda to the Secretary at least one day before the notice of the regular meeting of the Board is required to be sent as prescribed in the Constitution. The agenda shall be sent with the notice of the meeting. The Secretary shall send the notice of the meeting without the agenda if the President or his or her designee fails to send the agenda to the Secretary as outlined above. The absence of the agenda in the notice does not affect the validity of the notice or the proper conduct of business at the regular meeting. If the agenda is not sent with the notice, the Board shall adhere to the order of business outlined in Special Rule of Order No. 1. Please feel free to provide any suggestions or red-line the rules above to how it should read. I am working with the president to make these changes to be consistent with RONR and plan on proposing these changes to the Board at our next regular meeting in two weeks. I see, we should either have a standard order of business or an agenda, but not both. I guess the reason the Board previously established both was in case a draft agenda was not prepared there is an order of business to follow. I agree. So, it seems like the Board should change Special Rule of Order No. 2 to be consistent with this. Is there a way to do this when there is no motion pending? Since this Board is a "small board," the president allows discussion while no motion is pending. In this case, I assume a motion to limit debate would not be in order without a pending motion. Got it.
  5. The order of business has been adopted but there is also a rule that the president and secretary draft the agenda with the order of business and include items on the agenda requested by board members so everyone is aware of what is going to be considered. Anyone is still permitted to bring up any new business under new business. So essentially, the goal is to help everyone come to the meeting prepared for discussion. (This is a small board, so discussion is allowed to ensue before a motion is proposed.) So I guess there are a few questions here: 1) When the agenda is drafted, should the items with specific times go under special orders and the ones without times go under general orders? 2) Should/Can items with or without specific times be listed under new business? 3) Can both general orders and special orders have a time set for them or just special orders? What is the real difference? 4) If one item is scheduled to be considered at 4:30 p.m. and concludes at 4:45 p.m., but the next item is not scheduled until 5:00 p.m., what happens? Is there a way to say that an item will last a maximum of 30 minutes (for example), and if consideration ends before the 30 minutes, the next item will be considered under its allotted time? I have heard of different boards doing it in different ways, but have never seen a proper example. So I want to make sure we do this in a way that makes sense and follows RONR. Below are two examples of draft agendas. Please let me know your thoughts and what would be the proper way to organize the agenda. Any additional feedback that I can take to my board is much appreciated! Example 1: Call to Order Prayer 1. Adoption of the Agenda 2. Approval of the Minutes 2.A Minutes of the Annual Membership meeting held on October 8, 2023. 3. Report of Officers 3.A President’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.B Vice President of Baseball’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.C Vice President of Softball’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.D Secretary’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.E Treasurer’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.F Information Officer’s Report. (Officer's Name) 4. Reports of Standing Committees 5. Reports of Special Committees 6. Special Orders 7. Unfinished Business and General Orders 8. New Business 8.A Item title. (Requestor's Name) 8.B Item title. (Requestor's Name) 8.C Item title. (Requestor's Name) 9. Announcements Adjourn Example 2: Call to Order Prayer 1. Adoption of the Agenda 2. Approval of the Minutes 2.A Minutes of the Annual Membership meeting held on October 8, 2023. 3. Report of Officers 3.A President’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.B Vice President of Baseball’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.C Vice President of Softball’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.D Secretary’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.E Treasurer’s Report. (Officer's Name) 3.F Information Officer’s Report. (Officer's Name) 4. Reports of Standing Committees 5. Reports of Special Committees 6. Special Orders 4:30 p.m. 6.A Item title. (Requestor's Name) 5:00 p.m. 6.B Item title. (Requestor's Name) 5:30 p.m. 6.C Item title. (Requestor's Name) 7. Unfinished Business and General Orders 7.A Item title. (Requestor's Name) 8. New Business 8.A Item title. (Requestor's Name) 8.B Item title. (Requestor's Name) 9. Announcements Adjourn
  6. Hi everyone! I am curious to hear from you regarding where items should be placed in the order of business when a board adopts an agenda. Assume the board uses the order of business outlined at the end of this message. The president and secretary work together to develop the agenda, compiling specific items that have been requested by the officers of the board. In the interest of time, some agenda items specify the hour when they are supposed to be considered. Which heading should the agenda items be placed under (header #6, #7, or #8)? Call to Order Prayer 1. Adoption of the Agenda 2. Approval of the Minutes 3. Reports of Officers 4. Reports of Standing Committees 5. Reports of Special Committees 6. Special Orders 7. Unfinished Business and General Orders 8. New Business 9. Announcements Adjourn
  7. Hi! I would like some help understanding how a society would adopt various policies and rules regarding administrative duties that occur outside of a meeting. For example, we have an officer who is responsible for our website and social media accounts. The society recently adopted a policy that regulates how certain posts are published on our social media accounts. A question arose days after the meeting: where would we list the policies if they are not in the constitution? We received an explanation (below) from an officer on the various rules governing a society as explained in RONR. After reading that, the social media policy appears to be considered a standing rule. Is that correct? If so, would the society (or can the Executive Board) take action to adopt the policy as a standing rule? Or, if this is not a standing rule (or any other rule as described below), what would you recommend the society do to ensure this policy and any other policies or rules adopted in the future are properly organized? Thank you! Constitution/Bylaws: The constitution or bylaws (whichever name the organization decides to use) is a document that normally covers the following subjects: name of the organization, its purpose, members, officers, meetings, board, committees, parliamentary authority, and amendments to the constitution/bylaws. It will also contain rules that the society deems so important that they cannot be suspended or changed without a specified large majority. Rules of order: Rules of order are the parliarary rules contained in the parliamentary authority adopted by an organization. In our case, we adopted the latest edition of Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised ("RONR") as our parliamentary authority (see Article IX of our Constitution). Special Rules of Order: Special rules of order are rules that supplement or modify the rules contained in the parliamentary authority. These rules supersede RONR and allow an organization to customize elements of RONR to meet their needs. For example, RONR says that in meetings where there are more than a dozen members present, each speaker may speak two times for up to 10 minutes. A special rule of order could be adopted to allow more or less time than RONR allows. Another example of a special rule of order is a rule establishing the order of business or the agenda it will use for its meetings. Standing Rules: Standing rules are rules related to the details of the administration of the organization rather than to parliamentary procedure. Some examples of standing rules are: establishing the time and place for meetings, creating a seating arrangement for meetings, reimbursement policies, and spending limits.
  8. Thank you @George Mervosh and @Josh Martin for your responses! To help clarify, the society in question is not a public or governmental body. It is a private/independent society I guess you could say. I did my best to look in RONR to find the executive board's authority to exclude any members and nonmembers from attending its meetings. The best I could find are the following sections: RONR (12th ed.) 49:15 (This appears to only indicate that members can only be removed if they breach the rules or order of the executive board meeting.) It may protect itself against breaches of order by its members during board meetings, and against annoyance by nonmembers... RONR (12th ed.) 61:6 (This appears to only apply to meetings of the society.) A society has the right to determine who may be present at its meeting and to control its hall while meetings are in progress; but all members have the right to attend except in cases where the bylaws provide for the automatic suspension of members who fall in arrears in payment of their duties, or where the society has, by vote and as a penalty imposed for a specific offense, forbidden attendance. I would appreciate it if you could correct me if my understanding of the sections is incorrect or if I overlooked a specific section of RONR that specifies the executive board has that authority. Thank you!
  9. Hello everyone! Would someone help me find the rule in RONR regarding the right of members of the society to attend meetings of the executive board (of the same society)? Is there such a right and does the board have the authority to exclude anyone (including members of the society) from its meetings? Please let me know if more information is needed. Thank you in advance for your time and assistance!
  10. Is there anything in RONR (putting aside all Bylaws and assuming my club complies with RONR) that allows me to cancel, postpone, etc. a special meeting if I am the subject matter of the meeting? Ie. if the purpose of the meeting is to remove me from the board and I am out of town, can I cancel, postpone, etc. the special meeting? This probably doesn't exist, but just double checking. Thank you!
  11. Katz, thank you for your response. Yes, our Bylaws give the President the authority to call a special meeting, and he stated in the notice that he is calling a special board meeting. ”Special Board Meetings may be called by the President and shall be called upon written request of three Board Members.” Our Bylaws states the following regarding terms of office: ”The term of office for an elected Board member shall be fore two (2) years.” Our Bylaws provide nothing regarding discipline.
  12. Brief Background The organization I am a part of is just starting up. We have official Bylaws, but we have an "interim" or "acting" board. The people currently serving on the board decided to step up and take on the positions at meetings in front of the membership. In fact, I am the Treasurer of the board. Our Bylaws provided that the first election for the new board will be in February of 2020. Issue: The President just sent out a notice to the board that he is calling a special meeting. The purpose is "to remove the acting Treasurer for failing to perform his fiduciary responsibility in regards to our current banking status, he has fail to act in a timely manner and has shown contempt to any approach to secure the task he was given." I know this may be a difficult situation, but can the board simply voted to remove me? I am willing to provide any additional information needed. Bylaws References: Section 3.8 - Terms of Office. The term of office for an elected Board member shall be for two (2) years.
  13. What action do you recommend I take in this situation?
  14. No, we are acting board members in the sense that when the group of people came together to start the Club, they decided to select people to be in an officer role to help guide the Club as it began. The Bylaws were later adopted which provided a provision to allow the current unofficial (acting) board members to continue their duties until the end of the year. So we will have elections in December. The newly elected members will take office on January 1, 2020. Ok, thank you! That's what I thought.
  15. KERR COUNTY PATRIOTS CLUB AGENDA PRAYER APPROVAL OF MINUTES, October 28, 2019 VICE PRESIDENT Ashli Badders UNFINISHED BUSINESS Item 1 Bylaws have been completed and are available for viewing Item 2 Signup sheet for those interested in helping decorate KCPC Christmas float (Susan Deininger & Ruth Cremin) Item 3 Nominations for next year’s officers/ board members (Clayson Lambert) Item 4 Committee member activity reports/comments Political Research Committee: Comments on the School Board NEW BUSINESS Item 1 General Memberships activities, comments and local concerns Special Announcement: Voter Registration Next Year Training at County Commissioners Court on: Wednesday, Nov 20, 3-5 pm Wednesday, Dec 18, 3-5 pm Monday, Jan 6, 3-5 pm To sign up for one of these classes contact the Kerr County Elections Department 830-792-2242 Stay informed by check out our website www.kcpatriots.org NEXT MEETING November 25, 2019, 6:30 PM ADJOURN
  16. I have several questions regarding the procedures that were taken by the Club President to "reschedule" a meeting and other information. The Club just became official in October of this year and currently has "acting" Board members. I am serving on the Board. I have attached a copy of my club's Bylaws for your reference. We are subject to the latest edition of Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised. Every other week on Monday, the membership has a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Before that, the board holds it's regular meetings at 5:30 p.m. (on the same day). This past Monday, the President cancelled both meetings due to weather concerns. Can he cancel a meeting? If not, what proper procedures need to be done to cancel the meeting? During the Membership meeting, one item of business that was going to be considered was the nomination of members. (The President knows I was considering running for president and that I was going to be nominated to the position and was not in favor of that idea.) I will attach those agendas. Anyways, due to the cancellation of the meetings, a notice was sent (on the request of the President) to the Membership and the Board. Here is the notice that was sent out: "Good evening, all: Due to the inclement weather last night, Kerr County Patriots Club has rescheduled our next general meeting for November 18th, at 6:30 PM. We have lots of great things to discuss about the future of our club, as well as upcoming primary elections for March 2020. So please come and bring a friend." Does this notice suffice the notice definition as described in RONR? If not, what is it missing? Fist of all, the "Club" did not reschedule the meeting, the President did. Can he reschedule meetings even if it is due to weather conditions? I am still trying to get clarification from the President, but I assume he actually meant that he is calling a special Board meeting and a special Membership meeting. However, our Bylaws (Secs. 4.1 & 4.2) specify that regular Board meetings are determined by the Board, which the Board decided to have them before the regular Membership meetings, and regular Membership Meetings are held biweekly, which would mean the next regular meeting is Nov. 25. I asked the President and apparently the order for business or items that are going to be discussed are the same as the last meetings (refer to agendas). One of my concerns is that I was planning on being nominated to a position and nominees were going to be allowed to give a brief speech at the meeting, and the President knows I won't be able to attend. Can these nominations occur at this "rescheduled" or special meeting (especially considering the scope of the notice)? Thank you for your time and information! Best, Roman M. Garcia Kerr County Patriots Club_ Bylaws.pdf
  17. Can someone please point out to me when is RONR it says that a chair's ruling is, in essence, the decision of the assembly (considering it is not appealed). Thank you!
  18. Background Info: I am the president of a student council that follows RONR. I have been audio recording (with my phone) every council meeting for my own record and to confirm the minutes have all relevant information. The council has a standing committee (Parent Advisory Committee) made up of three adult members of the Association to advise the council. The committee members are appointed by the Board of Directors (our parent body). At the last meeting of the Council, an advisor told me I was not allowed to record the meetings anymore because one member of the Board of Directors disagrees because it is allegedly illegal to record minors without parental consent according to state law in Texas, U.S.. However, that is not the case. Anyone is allowed to record anyone as long as one party to the conversation consents (including the recording party). The advisor further stated that I must either turn off my recording or leave the meeting. I told her that she, as an advisor, does not have the authority to suspend someone from a meeting. She then stated that the meeting had been adjourned. I then stated that she, as an advisor, does not have the authority to adjourn a meeting. She stated that she does have the authority to adjourn the meeting because she is the chairman of the advisory committee. I however know that she does not have the authority to do so, as I was one of the members who helped form the committee this year. She continued to interfere and did not allow the meeting to continue for twenty minutes! After a lengthy discourse, the law that allows me to record was confirmed by another advisor, another advisor spoke with her over the phone about allowing me to record the meeting and it continued as if it never occurred. I am wondering 1) if there is anything that someone thinks I could have done better and 2) if there is anything in RONR that supports my defense of following state law to allow me to record
  19. I'm wanting to adopt two rules (below) for a student council I am a member of. Would you suggest these be adopted as standing rules or special rules of orders? No matter how much I read up on it I still get the two confused and what would apply as a standing rule and a special rule of order. Thank you! ARTICLE ??. ORDER OF BUSINESS Section 1.1 - Order of Business. The order of business for meetings shall be as follows: Call to Order Roll Call Invocation Introduction of Visitors Officers and HCHSA Members Open Forum 1. Adoption of Agenda 2. Approval of Minutes 3. Reports of Officers 4. Reports of Standing Committees 5. Reports of Special Committees 6. Special Orders 7. Unfinished Business and General Orders 8. New Business 9. Announcements Adjournment ARTICLE ??. EXPENDITURES Section 1.1 - Approval. All expenditures of Student Council funds shall be approved by a two-thirds vote. This approval may either be in advance of the expenditure or as a reimbursement. The Student Council shall not be obligated to reimburse any person for expenditures made without prior approval.
  20. What specific wording would you recommend to amend the bylaws so it makes more sense? I would like to propose an amendment prior to the annual meeting so there is not confusion. Thanks! ARTICLE V. MEETINGS Section 5.1 - Regular Meetings. Regular meetings shall be held on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 12:30 p.m. from September to May of the following year inclusive unless otherwise ordered by the Council. Section 5.2 - Annual Meetings. The regular meeting on the second Tuesday in May shall be known as the annual meeting. The purpose of the meeting shall be to elect officers for the next school year, to receive reports of officers and committees, and for any other business that may arise. All HCHSA middle school and high school students shall have the right to participate in annual meetings. Section 5.3 - Special Meetings. Special meetings may be called by the president or upon a written request of three Council members. The purpose of the meeting shall be stated in the notice. Section 5.4 - Quorum. A majority of the Council’s membership shall constitute a quorum.
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