Janelle Kulak

Thank you for the information. We have recently adopted new bylaws to which no longer require us to follow parliamentary procedure but choose to continue to do so in a general sense to assure productive and professional meetings are conducted. The minutes in questions are from before we adopted new bylaws so this is why I am assuring that the are handled to the best alignment with Robert's Rules. Although as you say if there are no corrections or once corrections are made, the practice of our organization has consistently been to vote to approve minutes. I have just heard from 4 of the 7 council members, to which they all mentioned that they do not feel comfortable approving minutes for meetings that they were not a part of. It also needs to be considered that the previous council was in high conflict with each other by the end of their term and during the time the meetings for the minutes in question took place. Therefore, the way I had worded my question was in respect to the delicateness of the situation and the new council most likely not wanting to be held responsible for approving minutes that may not be able to be appropriately verified as the minutes in question are from a meeting that took place over 7 months ago. To answer your question, no not a city council. We are a regulatory body for a health profession in Canada, appointed to govern the health profession under the framework of our provincial Ministry of Health. After reading my additional information, in your professional opinion, because one of our regulated members is demanding the minutes be available and bases the demand on our organization having a duty to adhere to a decision made in 2016 by the council in office at the time, to make council meeting minutes available to public and members, would it be best to post the minutes in question as a draft and/or with a disclaimer of non-approval?

Hello all, I just want to be clear on something, if past meeting minutes of a previous council are not able to be approved due to the current council members not having been in attendance at the meeting for those minutes in question, is it appropriate to still make those minutes available to the public as a "draft" and perhaps a disclaimer indicating for example that "these minutes are not approved"? Please advise. Thank you.

I have looked through the RR book and am still a bit confused regarding the proper procedure regarding tabling a topic/agenda item to a later meeting. Does tabling require a motion each time or is it sufficient to document in minutes, for example, that "council agreed to table agenda item number 15 to a later meeting"? Please note, we prefer to say "a later meeting" because revisiting the topic may not occur at a specific time, depending on the urgency or the time needed for review of additional information, etc. What is the proper term for tabling in this scenario? Lay on the table? Thank you

To give background: We are a regulatory body for a health profession and govern our all members in our provincial jurisdiction. According to our Bylaws, to be eligible for council membership, a member of our regulated profession cannot be an owner, director or administrator of an education institution that teaches our profession. We do allow for ONE member of council to be a teacher/educator employed by a school. One of our current council members is such, let's call him John. We have been working on a document that sets the minimum standards of education for our profession. At a recent council meeting, one council member expressed concern that John has a conflict of interest when discussing and voting on the topic/document because he is employed by one of these schools. In a prior consultation meeting with the schools and our council, John did not express any indication that he sided with the schools (who all but one public university, are privately owned). He actually expressed that he wanted to make the standards higher rather than at the lower level the schools are requesting we agree to. John had made a motion to approve the document but before the vote was completed, the other member expressed the conflict of interest concern. John had made the statement that he was merely an educator employed by the school, which again we allow for, but declared that he is in no way a part of the administration or management. Our President stated that there is no conflict and to proceed with the vote. The concerned council member opposed, along with two others who closely follow her lead. Since our council consists of 7 members, the President who was also chairing the meeting, had to vote to break the tie and the motion was passed. My question is, what is your professional opinion given our situation and if it is found to be in COI, how shall the member go about trying to rescind the motion?

Thank you for the information.

There was further discussion after the seconder. Then the meeting just moved onto the next topic. No one in the meeting said anything about the need to vote still.

Good day, I am inquiring as to how it would be said in the meeting minutes, if a motion was made, seconded, but then there was no vote to follow? Does the motion still need to be noted (ex: Jane made a motion to consult an expert on the topic. John seconded the motion. Voting process not completed.)? Or does a motion not need to be noted in the minutes if the meeting moved forward without a vote? Thank you

Thank you Mr. Martin, No, our bylaws do not state any particulars about electronic meetings but we did have conversation with the government board that we deal with inquiring about conducting an online meeting this year because of Covid restrictions, for our AGM and they had no objections. Basically, this pandemic has caused many regular operations to require special considerations. Our members also had no objections to an online meeting and we actually had the largest number of attendees thus far. I was more worried about someone complaining that the motions would be considered invalid. Thank you all again for your input. Greatly appreciated!

Thank you both Mr. Pappano and Mr. Mervosh. Our bylaws state: "The College shall hold an Annual General Meeting of its Registered Members once during each calendar year at such time and place as Council may determine." Our council had decided back in late May to hold this years AGM via ZOOM due to Covid -19 restrictions on public gatherings. Also, this year was an election year for a new term of council and after a mail in vote, it was important to announce the election results during this year's AGM.

Due to Covid 19, our AGM was held via Zoom this year. Because we are new to using Zoom and had difficulty seeing who raised their hands, who it was that made the motion or seconded, we were not able to document their names. (We did record the meeting on a laptop but for confidentiality purposes, we could display the participant box, as the video records the whole screen). Are the motions still valid if we cannot specifically name the person? Is it satisfactory to say "A member made a motion to approve the agenda. Another member seconded.....". There is no way for us to go back and try to get that information. Also our AGM was over 3 weeks ago, so memories cannot be trusted. Please advise. Thank you.