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Gary c Tesser

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Everything posted by Gary c Tesser

  1. (Let me start here....: ) It looks to me as if these two statements are contradictory. What's up with this? (Also, I'm dubious as to whether Robert's Rules much applies in this case. I have just spent 7 hours re-reading the book and come up with a pittance, a tippance, a flippance, a nuance, a savoure-faire. Maybe a tidbit.)
  2. O Richard, our first quarrel. No, that's not what appeals are for. Appeals are for correcting errors by the chair. If the chair gets it right (and if the assembly recognizes this), there will be no appeals. I' m reminded of something from the early days of this website, when there was a sub-forum called something like "Ask The A-Team." Dr Stackpole and Mr Honemann might remember it; if you're under 80 years old, it was before your time (even I was just a little kid then, and Shmuel Gerber and George Mervosh were even younger). So, someone asked, Our bylaws say you have to attend at least six of the monthly meetings per year to sustain your membership, so here it's the beginning of October, so does anyone who has not attended at least three meetings so far this year automatically lose his or her membership (by ineluctable arithmetic), or do we have to wait until New Year's Eve to throw them out? The reply, memorably (which is why I remember it, duhh) began, "Sometimes bylaws are aspirational in nature ...." Not the first or last time I sat dumbstruck, limbs unmoving, mouth agape, eyes glazed, staring at the computer screen (though more often it's when looking at a different kind of website), but yeah, it was impressive (at least to me, inasmuch as I was impressed, duhh*). Kind of winking at the sense of the sentence in RONR, 11th Ed., spanning p. 589 - 590. ________ * Dan Seabold pronounces "duhh" as "Q. E. D."
  3. I should (!) emphasize that the meaning of the word "should" is not nailed down. In RONR (and elsewhere), it sometimes is used to propose advice, but some other times it just plain tells you what to do, period, which is what a "rule" does. I opine that the term "should rule" is oxymoronic (no offense meant to those oxies of my acquaintance).
  4. It doesn't have no effect; it encourages them to do what it proposes that they should do. (I concede that's idiotic. Or imbecilic -- I can never remember the distinction between these terms of art in a field I'm unfamiliar with. That's not what bylaws are for. That's where "should" statements should appear in a Mission Statement or whatever. And that's why bylaws are called bylaws, not by-feel-goods (see Index, and that's not the finger I'm thinking of). The bylaws should say whether a [I'm gonna paraphrase, the software punches me in the soft bits] ... ... , or not at all.
  5. Dang Stackpole gets up before the sun rises or sets or whatever it does. Ask him, he's the one with the doctorate on when the sun gets up.
  6. Yes. It looks like a rule "in the nature of a rule of order"* -- but whose nature implies that it cannot be suspended. I am not happy: when the pastor absents himself, you are stuck... ... (Maybe: ... because this would maybe devolve to a question of interpreting your bylaws. ) But nevertheless, I'll aver (since I got away with it yesterday, but maybe I'd be better off "asserting," since I'm pretty sure I do remember what it means) that, first, we, here on The World's Premiere Internet Parliamentary Forum, cannot interpret bylaws without reading them in their entirety (which I do not encourage Guest Chang to post for us. because ...); and we cannot reasonably attempt to interpret every existing set of bylaws (even only those few dozen every couple of decades that we're specifically asked about) because it's tough and confusing enough for us to try to figure out what Robert's Rules means, when for the most part we pretty much regular responders all have a copy each and have more or less read it at least once, for sufficiently vague definitions of "once", [oh yeah, I'm getting ready to "aver"] but second, maybe your committee could, under these exigent (o, my favourite word of teh month, thank hevvins the month is almost over) circumstances, do whatever it needs to do, and when, subsequently, your pastor finds one of the 168 hours of his week that he can spare for you on his committee, your committee can ratify whatever you all have meagrely accomplished in his regrettable absence. O, and to maybe supplement HHH's suggestion, change the bylaws so that this committee is not hobbled in the absence of the pastor. _________ *I don't really understand the distinction, but I'll follow it. For reasons. Most of which I'll agree with. Or truckle to (or "with," or "on." -- or whatever. Who knows? These are jumbleable prepositions.). Or look up "truckle" again.
  7. If this is an informal get-together, like in a bar or someone's living room or man-cave (do they still have those?), no-one can stop them, and they can invite anyone they want and ignore anyone they don't want, since they are just getting a group of like-minded citizens together to drink and chat, and they cannot make any binding decisions for the organization. I'm not sure what the question is here, and accordingly (I should have written "so" instead, but it's os hard to type wright) I suspect that it may not have been answered, so I venture to reply, since incidentally I notice that my competitive website post-count falls precipitously when I take a few months off every half-year or so, as I have lately.* So: (O My, it was so easy!) If this is a regular membership meeting, the regular presiding officer, usually the society's president, presides; and the society's regular secretary serves as secretary (is there a verb? help, copyeditors!). No other board members have any function at all, unless your daffy bylaws (aren't they all?) say otherwise. Or OK, maybe not so daffy, if the bylaws, say, establish a Sgt.-At-Arms, he would serve as such at a membership meeting. If, say, your organization is a dog-fanciers' society (I gather that Kim K's is not, but I also write for the multitudes of the half-dozen regular readers of this, The World's Premiere Internet Parliamentary Forum (Reg. Penna. Dept. Agr.) ), then your bylaws might establish the office of Dog-Catcher, to police the joint (quadrupedally supplementing the duties of the Sgt.); or, for that matter, the office of Dog-Releaser (to subvert the efforts of the Sgt., especially where plastic bags are concerned); or maybe both (I wouldn't want to be a member, but I'd love to come and watch). (Kim K, I apologize to my irrepressible facetious aside comments; I acknowledge that these matters are grave to you. Especially these days, when whistle-blowers are, by dint of spectacularly successful propaganda, rendered the bad guys.) My point being that the board, as the board itself, has NO (oh yeah: darn right I'm shouting) function -- not even any existence -- as the board, whatsoever, at a membership meeting. If this is some unusual kind of meeting, just for budget considerations, then the rules that established this meeting apply, but if they don't say anything about the conduct of the meeting, then the usual rules default. Finally (you hope): If this is a board meeting (with no other rules about budget meetings of board meetings, for the love of G-d, please), then the usual conduct of board meetings applies: its standard presiding officer, usually the president of the society; the society's secretary, doing the secretarying (ooo, spell-check spanks me), &c. ___________ *Joke stolen borrowed from MAD Magazine, IIRC.
  8. You didn't go to the fourth grade? That's where I learned most of what I know now. But it may be different for you in Michigan. (Kidding about Michigan)
  9. No, it's not, and of course they didn't, and of course it's not proper at all.. This eccentric view is based on the idea that, while Guest blong seems to get it, Mr Chairman has no clue, and probably most of the other members haven't either. And on the idea that Mr Chairman, and they, probably think you're talking Serbo-Croatian when you talk about adjourned vs. special meetings, and if you (or anyone else) suggest that at the next unambiguously legitimate meeting, blong or any ally of his (I presume, and maybe pray, that he has some) raises a point of order that the illegitimately (scheduled / called) announced meeting was (is? help!) null & void, you're more likely to get uproar from those members who sighed in immense relief that they finally, somehow or other, however sloppily, got their organization's business done, who perceive that you're throwing a persnickety fussbudget Mrs Grundy monkey wrench into their hard-wrought efforts. -- assuming that anyone but Guest blong would have a clue what a point of order is (and what it's for, and how it works). For that matter, those who ... ... certainly have the right to voice their objections, and for sure will prevail if propriety gets its due. Yes, we're here to talk about the rules. But you can only teach people as much as they're willing to learn, and capable of. ... So, maybe, diplomatically, we can suggest that Guest blong (and his allies, I assume he has acquired a few more since I started typing this in April), at the next legitimate meeting, gently point out that irregularities in procedure in the last few meetings call for the ratification of the decisions made at that infamous enormity of a pseudo-meeting that Mad Emperor Yuri* pulled (off) together. Or maybe we could suggest that they hire as a parliamentarian Vladimir Putin, so as to pour gasoline on the fire. _______ *Lois McMaster Bujold reference, and maybe I misspelled his name, but I'm pretty sure I got his title right.
  10. Yeah? And what do you think it'll be? And how different would it be, from if they had paint-by-numbers established an adjourned meeting? (Josh, what do you think that you and I are differing on, here?)
  11. Looking at the first three posts here, I regret to disagree with my heroes and aver (or assert, I forget which is which) that the president, though monumentally sloppily, intended to continue the meeting that could not go on because it was inquorate; and, dancing on hot coals, I'll toy with saying that the assembly, tacitly, went along with this. ON the other hand. Of course Mr. Chairman does not have the authority to "call a meeting" unless the bylaws grant him this authority, which apparently they do not. Y'know, here's the thing. When dealing with organizations whose procedures are messy and ill-informed, advice has to be given in that context. Yes this is the website -- indeed, the (pardon me, "The") World's Premier Internet Parliamentary Forum -- whose avowed purpose is to promulgate The Wisdom According to RONR ... but c'mon, half the time it's a Dear Abby column about organizational dysfunction. (Yes, snif sob.) So really. Let them have their continued meeting, however sloppily arranged, but, and here's the crux, apparently well-intentioned. Moving forward (wonderful neo-cliche we have for a couple of years now!), let's educate them on how to be less messy, emphasizing that mess does mess with people's rights and the efficient functioning of the organization ... but give 'em a break. The do need a meeting, and maybe this is the best way, all things considered, for them to have one. Lotsa luck, blong, I got no clue. If I had to bet, I'd say (averring, or asserting, whatever) that you just got a continuation going, so there's no limit on what can be dealt with, especially as far as bringing up New Business goes.
  12. I don't have time to fuss with cutting-and-pasting, so I'm going to quote, from A Hunter, and respond, as GcT. Further, my copy of RONR 11th Ed is three miles away, over there in Flatbush (much more than the cubit from my keyboard to my elbow, and still longer than the furlong I can usually canter without breathing hard) (and George, put a sock in it), so I'm going to have to give citations from the 10th (which is warming my knee) -- I presume the estimable A Hunter will be able to suss out the comparable citations in the 11th. If not, he or she can ask. And be accommodated, or not. I'll be over there (in Flatbush) (remember the sock, George) probably Thursday afternoon, so if M. Hunter has not replied by then that he or she has found the citations, and if no one else, drudging underpaid morlocks, has chimed in to provide them, thereby improving there word count, maybe I'll do it. For $4.50 an hour (but I can deal,) I'm indefatigable (though often tired). [GcT:] Commendable, and thank you. Often inquirers don't bother. I have a cousin who sometimes phones me to ask what a word means (most recently, "recondite," and I'm not going to tell you what it means, because you ought to know by now), because it's easier for him to pick up the phone at his elbow than to walk across the room and open the dictionary, and he's confident that I really didn't need to finish that shower and rinse the soap out of my eyes anyway, and dashing through the place naked and dripping in the 55-degree Fahrenheit to answer the phone is no daunting prospect for an intrepid Hibernian Son of the Hyacinth like me. Actually he's just fond of me and wants to chat, and he is reminded that we haven't spoken in a while by his coming across some recondite word in his reading. [GcT:] [a] No, not you: RONR (10th Edition) -- p. 493, "General Form ..." -- note that "should in general be submitted in writing" is ambiguous, and not everyone agrees with me, but I hold that "should" here is not just advice, but a prescribed rule. /// But no, you can't require it in advance: to do that would mean the organization adopts a rule saying so (ff.). [GcT:] In my opinion, this is a good idea -- analogous to having draft minutes distributed in advance -- but just as the secretary doesn't have to distribute draft minutes prior to the meeting on the whim of the president, the committees don't have to submit their reports in advance either (apologies: I'm repeating myself). [GcT:] [a] Yeah, I think so, but I can't find those references now either. /// Ehh, where do you propose you're going to mark it? In your memoirs? (If so, I'd like to see them!) Note that, in the sample minutes (Tenth Edition, Section 48), there's no mention of committee reports that were not given. [GcT:] Um, I think, no, you have to ask. (But see below.) Again, a kudos to you. Few would exercise such diligence. ... and courtesy and punctilious respect for the rights of the members. You should write here on the World's Premiere INternet Parliamentary Forum regularly, not just this once. [GcT:] I don't think you're the kind of person who wants to reign, only to rein. :-) [GcT:] [a] No, unless the organization adopts such a rule. (Actually, possibly not that arduous, and in most cases, not contentions) Yeah; in fact that's the SOP. The reporting member reads the report, preferably with concrete recommendations, if there are any, gathered together at the end, and then hands the document to the secretary.* [c] RONR (10th Edition), Section 51, "Types of Reports," (a) (p. 486; nearby in 11th Ed.) [c] Information, and no report if there is none. __________ *Or beams it from her smart phone to her smart phone.
  13. YOU PASS IT ON SOMEWHERE ELSE. Note that Madison's notes on the US Constitutional Convention -- recording the Rationale, the wisdom and thinking -- are to this day more focussed on than the actual minutes of the proceedings (my impression, I have not researched this). If you want the deliberations, in addition to the results, you might want to assign a separate secretary. Mind you, without a recording-and-transcript, the document might be subjective, based on the inevitably subjective note-taking of the Secretary for Rationale, Wisdom, and Thinking. Yes, that is a problem. It has indeed bothered me for some time. But I don't think that perverting the purpose and function of minutes -- recording the facts, no opinions -- is the solution. Do you really? Yes: [absolutely; indeed; categorically (insert more synonyms at will], it lacks corporate memory. But that lack is not germane to the purpose of the minutes: so, fulfilling that lack must be the purview of a supplementary document (like, say, the Journal of the House of Representatives, IIRC).
  14. (Calm down, Gary. (No, calmer.) johnh, no (or, more specifically, no, no, no), because that's not what minutes are for. They are for, in the future ... for example, we look at the minutes to see what the current status of a proposal is -- especially one that has been contentious. -- For example: We look at the minutes to see what the resolution of disputes about which of differing currently distributed copies of the bylaws of the organization, shall be. In such cases, all the debate and discussion is chaff, as far as what was done is concerned. So in all cases, also all the debate and discussion is chaff, again, as far as what was done is concerned. -- Note, though, that the debate itself is not chaff: no, it may be essential -- in terms of the history of the society, and its proceedings, for whoever cares about that ; but it is not the proceedings themselves (which is what the minutes are the documentation of). _____________ ** More later (should it eventuate) I intend as a reply to the post of Guest Enquiring Minb, but I already am fading, and missed Angie Tribeca, so I am bereft.
  15. My book is not handy, but I don't think so, unless the effect would be different from voting down the original motion (in its original sense). (But, um, that's what Guest is distinctly not addressing, I suspect, so maybe Bob's your uncle.)
  16. Guest Asking, can you tell us more specifically what you are guest asking?
  17. We regulars on the website should; new person Elaine A might very well be unaware of them, and either way, it looked to me like she was thanking him for his immediate reply. Everything else -- and I agree his contributions are immense and, unless I misremember, unerring -- is tangential, or dare I suggest it, not germane. OK, but his reply, while saving her the time and trouble of poring through those 700+ pages, still was rather skeletal. If, instead of thanking him, Elaine A had said, ~"Thank you, but does that mean that the answer to my question, 'Can the 2nd VP or the treasurer request the list of members?' is yes?"~, then is is that follow-up question asking, repetitiously, what he already answered; or did he actually not answer that latter, embracing question? I submit that he did not. [Readers kindly disregard the following quote-box, which should not be there; or, if a reply box doesn't appear because the software, damn its nonexistent soul, deleted as I had previously requested that it do but, as of posting it had not, then never mind, kindly proceed to the rest of my fulminatory rant.] Indeed: to say, "No rule in RONR prohibits it." is an unimpeachable stock answer, and you and I and others have all used it. But sometimes it will be enough to satisfactorily inform the questioner, and sometimes not. I think in this instance it is not. But if, for example, Mr. Huynh's reply had included ~'it might be that your own, or other, governing rules, prohibit it; but here, on The World's Premier Internet Parliamentary Website Forum, we cannot address whatever those other rules may say; we can only deal with what Robert's Rules says,'~ then I think that would appropriately flesh out the six-word answer as it now appears. Consequently, I sheepishly concede that my reply to Mr. Huynh's reply was itself skeletal.
  18. Elaine A, Mr Martin has told you (in accurate summary, AFAIK) what RONR says "good standing" means (I think it's in a footnote around page 5; I would check for you but my fingers are way over here on the keyboard and my book is way over there under my right elbow; you might say, OK, you soi-disant (word of the day) Gary person, you're left-handed (which you probably didn't know, but might have guessed by now, if not demonstrably from my linguistic inclinations not to mention my eccentric typography) so it's easy as 3.14 (easy as pi, get it?) to reach over there with your facile left hand and pluck that book out from under that right elbow, although what then will that right elbow lean on? ) -- but you know what? Pfui. Elaine A, why don't you just look in your own darn copy. Unless you don't have one. In which case, that's a deficit that you should remedy ASAP; but, if in the meantime, if you want to know, then please write back and I, or someone else (like, say, my fiancee or doppelganger,, Nancy N, after sundown) will very probably tell you. But: we here, the regular (if somewhat irregular, some would say daffy) habitue's [sp?] of The World's Premier Internet Parliamentary Forum (or so I keep saying, with lamentably nugatory (or maybe "negligible" I forget which is which ) backup (or support, I forget which is which)) are supposed to discuss what Robert's Rules says, maybe what we think it means, but we can't tell you what your own group's rules mean: that's for your group itself to determine. (Of course, if you want to, you can hire a parliamentarian, or even an aspiring parliamentarian like me or Richard Brown, although he's a lawyer, but I don't hold that against him, unlike his right leg, which he habitually holds against his left leg, like lawyers typically tediously do, because law school indoctrinated them to think that that's what legs are for -- Great Steaming Cobnuts, dear Elaine A., do you know how much money they spend to go to law school, and that's what they learn, to rub their legs together? LIke Boy Scouts trying to light a fire with sticks? Except that Boy Scouts have to trudge out into the woods to find sticks to rub together but lawyers often find legs inside their pants but Good Heavens, I'm certainly not gonna look, because interpreting bylaws is something that trained, experienced, veteran parliamentarians are supposed to be good at. You can see from my ID on the post that I ask for $4.50 and hour, but I can deal, but probably you can get a better offer from Mr Brown or Mr Honemann or Mr Balch or some other lawyer.) Now I'm wondering what Elaine A. was asking about.
  19. O Great Steaming Cobnuts, Dan, you think he's been talking about the United States Senate all this time, not his own local universitiy's? I'm finally getting the idea (I, a glacially slow and immeasurably ponderous thinker, of dour and lugubrious mien). And if so, why would not the Advanced Discussion (sub-)Forum on this, the world's premier Internet parliamentary forum, soi-disant, or so I like to assert, be an appropriate venue for discussion of tangential parliamentary matters, considering where General Robert's source material came from?
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