Shmuel Gerber

In the phrase "considered as if it did not exist", I'm fairly certain that the past tense "did" is not being used to indicate past time, but rather because conditional expressions use the past tense as a grammatical rule. In other words, "as if it did not exist" has the same basic meaning as "as if it does not exist", not "as if it never existed". I don't know how much, if at all, this matters to the discussion, but I figured it is worth pointing out.

I'm bumping up this post because approval was needed due to URL.

No, he cannot withdraw the motion in absentia. He must be present in order to withdraw his motion. Once a motion has been stated by the chair it becomes the property of the assembly, and is no longer under the control of the member who made the motion. Why couldn't the assembly adopt a motion to grant a written request that the motion be withdrawn, in the same way that it can accept a written request to be excused from a duty (also known as a resignation)?

That is not quite the rule in RONR: "50:15 A committee (except a committee of the whole, 52) can appoint subcommittees, which are responsible to and report to the committee and not to the assembly. Subcommittees must consist of members of the committee, except when otherwise authorized by the society in cases where the committee is appointed to take action that requires the assistance of others."

@Dan Honemann I don't know if I have a written record of it, but my recollection is that, many years ago, you opined in the forum that there is nothing in RONR that would prevent an organization from adopting special rules of order (of a permanent nature that do not expire at the end of a session) to apply to its conventions.

That's fine, as far as RONR is concerned. There is no calendar limit on the scheduling of an adjourned meeting.

The adjourned meeting must take place before the next regular meeting of the assembly.

Normally an employee or consultant would report to the executive director or president of the organization, who ultimately answer to the membership except on matters over which such officers are given exclusive power in the bylaws. But it seems as though there are specific provisions in your bylaws regarding decisions of the legal general counsel, so your organization will have to interpret what they mean.

This is true for amendments to the bylaws, which are main motions. For subsidiary motions to Amend, however, the rule is different. See 27:11.

That would be a solid amendment in the U.S., but if you're using the weird temperature scale that Canada and the rest of the world prefer, it may have melted.

It seems you are saying that there is indeed no difference between the two situations. I agree. And I agree that the book could be more explicitly consistent on this point.

Yes. See 12:75.

I agree. This is true in general, where motion Y is simply postponed "to meeting B" with no time specified. However, it may be worth noting that if motion Y is postponed to a particular time of the meeting, it is not taken up before that time even if General Orders has been reached in the order of business. In such a case, it may be that motion X is properly taken up first.

"25:4 In making the incidental motion to Suspend the Rules, the particular rule or rules to be suspended are not mentioned; but the motion must state its specific purpose, and its adoption permits nothing else to be done under the suspension."

In general, provisions in the bylaws cannot be suspended. (The exceptions are if the bylaws themselves allow the suspension, and provisions that are clearly in the nature of rules of order.) Also in general, a motion to suspend the rules specifies the particular purpose to be accomplished by the suspension. It does not simply suspend a particular rule altogether.

Depends on exactly what's at steak.

That would be uncivil, as the proper spelling of the term is "barbecue."

This paragraph talks about doing business during voting, not during counting the votes. Doing business while the votes are counted is mentioned in 45:30.

When Robert's Rules of Order requires a 2/3 vote, it is 2/3 of the votes cast at a meeting. Sometimes this is accompanied by a requirement for previous notice, which means notice given in the call to the meeting or orally at the previous meeting. If your organization has a different requirement, such as 2/3 of the entire membership or 2/3 of the members present, then it would need to say so in the governing documents.

The question was: In our organization the Executive Board consists of the President, Immediate Past President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and three at-large members. If a newly elected president is elected in November of 2023, takes office in January 2024 but resigns in March of the same year, would he be considered the Immediate Past President when considering who should be considered the Immediate Past President on the Board?

Oh, I see. So the (incorrect) hypothesis of the question was that perhaps an adjourned meeting is treated as though it is being held on the same day as the original meeting whose business it is a continuation of. Thanks for explaining.

Nope. I don't understand the question and I have no idea what assumption is being made.

Or actually the answer is that it is a false choice. The motion can be made on the next succeeding day within the session, which does not have to be the next day on the calendar, and the session itself can be extended by fixing the time for an adjourned meeting.

The question is quite unclear (at least it is to me), because I would think the answer is the former. "The next succeeding day within the same session on which a business meeting is held" is relative to the day on which the original vote was taken. As long as no meetings of the same session have been scheduled for other days, then it will only be possible to make a motion to Reconsider on the same day the original vote was taken. But if the assembly then fixes an adjourned meeting of the same session to be held on another day, the time limit for making a motion to reconsider is "extended" to whenever that adjourned meeting (or the first day of it) is held, regardless of the number of calendar days involved.

It seems to me that publication of the minutes of the business transacted at a special meeting is certainly related to the business transacted at the special meeting. There is no requirement of previous notice of particular motions at a special meeting.