Gary c Tesser

She can make recordings on her phone? Get me in touch with her, I want to get one. Oh, and if the fact that this is a California organization is germane, it's beyond the ambit of this website, which might be why neither Mr Harrison nor Mr Brown went near it.

I think the estimable Mr Brown was referring to non-member people , given his next sentence. I think the inestimable Mr Brown does mean that they are, specifically, full-fledged members of the committee, without having become members of the full organization. Sure, don't spend a couple of bucks more to support your neighbors and and independent entrepreneurship in America (and other places); just click a few buttons and further swell the coffers of Amazon and the other six companies that own half of the world's money.

I've often wondered, what's the difference between this and the simple application of the fundamental principle that (except for Page 251 and some of its friends) points of order must be timely? ___________ N. B. Just kidding about the "fundamental principle" wording.

In anyone's memoirs. In a letter to The Times, which is every Briton's sacred right. As a tattoo on your right shoulder blade, unless you're a surfer dude or a member of a ruthless criminal biker gang, in which case it belongs behind the right knee (extending down the calf, but not to the ankle, if the comment is that lengthy), or, if you're a college graduate, have it engraved on the back of your iPhone, which you then have bronzed.

Yes. That's why I'm trying to get up a meeting. That's when application of RONR -- aside, preliminarily, from applying the principles, which should apply to any meeting, even a tete-a-tete -- would (thankfully! at last!) come into play. (You know I haven't even got my $4.50 for the first hour, long past. Great Steaming Cobnuts.)

Wow. Thanks. Until I read this from you, I had not recognized this repercussion. Great Steaming Cobnuts, if this were on my RP test, I'll have got at least one wrong.

This is important because, at a meeting, #2 and #3 (as well as #1 and #2) would be presented with the question, "Do you favor this proposed schedule change? Say Aye, or no [or abstain]"? What you have now is tail-chasing, trying to determine what the specific, actual meanings are of the two (actually reasonable, given the men's overt indifference to the result) wishy-washy responses. Sure, you could try to pull out an answer from #2 and #3 over an interminable number of phone calls, pointing out to them that their ambivalent responses don't help make a determination and that we do need to make a determination. But a meeting will probably be more determinative, and even almost certainly take less time in the aggregate. And incidentally we could actually discuss applying RONR (always salubrious on the world's premiere Internet parliamentary website) to your issues. Oh, and to pull out another absurdity, perhaps the most flagrant is the idiotic (or daffy, I can't tell which applies more, or whether they are both apropos) suggestion that the requirement to use Robert's Rules is not applicable because your four guys "made" a "determination" outside of a meeting. It's bloody well intrinsically implicit that the union rules assume, and probably intrinsically require, that group decisions be made at a meeting, not by two haphazard phone calls. __________ N. B. I'm uncomfortable with "intrinsically implicit": suggestions welcome; no, implored.

Indeed, that's as much the point, and I suspect that Her Nancyship considered that point as so obvious that it should go without saying, so she didn't say it, unlike almost everybody else who figures that something should go without saying, so they say "it should go without saying that ..." and then they go and tell you.

There is some avail, because, though the rules will not apply, the principles (what the sorely-missed Mountcastle referred to as the sandbox) surely do. This observation does bring to a head that push and shove are long overdue for getting together. Jimm, two practical questions: 1. How does the company want to be informed that a schedule change has been (or has not) been made? 2. Would the four members, especially 2 and 3, be willing to actually have a meeting at this point (provided that they have not already been irrevocably convinced that the decision has been irrevocably determined)?

But Attajb, no, the bylaws are not silent. Here is what you told us that they say, followed by your asking two questions that call for us parliamentarians (including aspiring parliamentarians like me) to tell you what these bylaws mean : -- . Of course,it's no crime to ask. Often parliamentarians (so I'm told) are actually hired by organizations specifically to provide experienced advice on what bylaws mean. But when they do that, they are giving advice, and only giving advice: only the organization itself can interpret ambiguities in its own rules (especially its bylaws) For that matter, at this point I strongly suspect that you did not think, with your first post, that you were asking for an interpretation of your bylaws. I infer, having known him for some sixteen years now, that George Mervosh's reply was predicated on the standard assumption that you're asking what Robert's Rules says, so that's what he gave you. When you replied, informing us that your bylaws make the situation different, I imagine he felt blindsided, hence his grumpy (or testy, I forget which is which) snipe, which of course could just as easily be accounted for by his posting at 12:25 PM, which is past his bedtime. But -- and I presume (making a PRES out of U and ME) that you're new enough to this, the world's premiere Internet parliamentary forum (so I keep telling people, but where does it get me?) -- that you are probably unaware of our custom (or rule), here, to assiduously avoid (or refrain from, I forget which is which) interpreting bylaws that we haven't even read thoroughly (which is essential, since excerpts can sometimes leave significant stuff out) (except sometimes some of us do, when our resident reprobates suss out that they can get away with it). You should also know that Mr. Mervosh's saying "bluntly incivil" was probably an in-joke (and, looking it up just now, I realize to my horror that "incivil" is probably a misspelling).

Don't go away yet, we might not be done.

I did, until you got me second-guessing, and then Mr Lages weighed in tellingly.

OK: Question 14: How can I get an item on the agenda for a meeting? is at http://www.robertsrules.com/faq.html#14 .

This sounds to me like a standing rule (VerStandische rule, in German ... maybe), which, as far as Robert's Rules of Order is concerned, can be adopted with a plain majority vote, with no previous notice required. Robert's Rules doesn't require that a motion introduced as new business be on an agenda (see FAQ #14 or so ... gimme a minute, I'll dig up the link) or be pre-circulated. Your organization's own rules might have such requirements, but we First Responders, here on The World's Premiere Internet Parliamentary Forum, can't know that, so you and your fellow members will have to check that for yourselves. (Or you can hire a parliamentarian, or an aspiring parliamentarian like me, to dig up the information for you. Ten or fifteen years ago, JJ or someone told me he charges $100 an hour, plus expenses, and that might have gone up. I want $4.50 an hour. But I can deal.) We on the World's Premiere Internet Parliamentary Forum can't really give authoritative opinions about what your constitution means. It's up to the organization to interpret its own rules, including (or especially) your constitution or bylaws. (Or you can hire a parliamentarian, &c. &c.)

No, this is just wrong. Time is still short -- which is why I have taken a couple weeks to get back to this. More later.

Also I'm posting this so I get at least something in before Dan gets up.

But yes, good question, Young Brave Sparkling Canad revness. Time was that I thought, based on what RONR said (and before that, ROR, and before that, whatever it said in 1875 or 1893, I'd look it up but that information is on page VII ("seven" in civilized, post-Roman-Empire terms) or so in the book, and I'm way over here at the keyboard and my copy of the book is way over there about a whole cubit away under my elbow), that Robert's Rules (1876 to now) does not allow -- at all (or "whatsoever," I'm not sure which is which) -- for exit from executive session, so that, once an organization enters executive session at a meeting, it is stuck in it forever (or until the organization disbands, or until the heat-death of the Universe -- whichever comes first) (those who might wish to research this question might look at then-contemporary threads, in one or two of which, indeed, here on The World's Premiere Internet Parliamentary Forum (O nuts, I think I left something out), J. J. referred to that phenomenon, perhaps paradoxically, as the "cold death" of the Universe -- probably on accounta hims being a college graduate). I have not actually been convinced by the opposing arguments which say that, implicitly, any organization that enters executive session can leave it simply with a main motion, corresponding to the main motion that the organization employed to enter executive session; but I have acquiesced under the incessant (or interminable, I'm not sure which) browbeating.

Maybe Guest Bob has imbobed [heh] too much these couple of days; alas, demonstrably some of us haven't.

And to all, and to all a good night. (Beethoven's Fifth on WQXR, and for those ships at sea or eslewhere, WQXR.org, streaming; almost certainly to follow, Beethoven's Ninth, to conclude around midnight in New York.)

Oh c'mon.

Yeh, perish knows why Bruce couldn't have said it so clearly himslef.

and more specifically: Great Steaming Cobnuts, I thought he meant "board meeting members" (whatever they are, as distinguished from board members); if he had said "board meeting that members" -- clearly introducing a clause - I wouida got it.

(Uh, yeah, but I didn't get it. Ouch.)

What?

If your bylaws contain any instructions for amending them, you must adhere to those instructions. If your bylaws don't have any rules for amending themselves, but if they do prescribe that Robert's Rules is the parliamentary authority of your organizatino (that's Rumanian for "organization," I like throwing that in once in a while to save the trouble of wringing typos all the time), then your organization can amend your bylaws (please avoid the term "revisions," I'll tell you why later if you want) by what you'll read when you look at RONR, 11th Ed, Section 57 -- it's a few pages, you can knock it off in a few minutes and then be well-informed on a worthwhile aspect of being a member of any organization. It says something like, if your bylaws don't include instructions for amending them, then you amend them by either giving previous notice to the membership, and then at a meeting, a 2/3 vote; or a vote of a majority of the entire membership (p. 581). (Hieu, why did you leave it to me to clean up the details? What are you doing up at six in the morning anyway, if you don't have fishing as an excuse?)