donaltman3

Thanks.

The next meeting is a regularly scheduled board meeting. A letter does go out to all board members before the meeting usually a week or so before and sometimes includes known agenda items. Meetings are held once a month on the third Thursday of the month. The letter stating the agenda with refrence to the specific motion can go out sooner if need be in order to have a majority vote if need be. What would be sufficient if we meet every 4 weeks? The previous board meeting was one week ago Jan. 21st.

" Is it proper for a board chair to advise someone that they could have it included the agenda for a simple majority vote instead of the 2/3 vote ? " Richard Brown, I am re-asking this because I didn't have it included in my previous post before your response. (I took too long editing.) Thank you for your quick responses and help!

I plan to acknowledge my mistake and assure it was an oversight not intentional. I will ask for my fellow board members to help me by calling for a point of order if they see any other errors. Thanks !!!

It was adopted 10 yes - 8 no. The meeting was adjourned it has not carried over. We will not meet again for a month. The issue was usage of masks. The motion read that "masks are required to be worn while at the church." This did not take into consideration that our pastor would potentially (if he followed the rules) be required to wear one while he is in the church during the week or our secretary while she was in her office often times also alone and the office is secure, with even a glass talk-through window in it anyways. Also persons reading or talking to our congregation during service would have no ability to remove their mask so they could be understood or heard. The motion was absolute and did not give any room for exceptions. The person after the motion passed acknowledged it and said everyone should just use "common sense" during those times contrary to how he phrased the motion. During what I mentioned as "bantor" after the vote, he was given the opportunity to resend or amend but stated he did not want to chance a re-vote that didn't pass so he refused to do so. I have some board members that did not get to debate that opposed the motion that I have heard in passing plan to make their own motion which now says mask usage is no longer required. Can a contradicting motion be used to replace another without specifically voting to resend the previous one? There was no set time limit or sunset in the original motion. At some point (I hope) this motion will not be needed. If the answer is that the original must be rescinded or amended to change our mask policy. Is it proper for a board chair to advise someone that they could have it included the agenda for a simple majority vote instead of the 2/3 vote ?

Quick question. At our last Church board meeting (in which I am the chair,) I made a mistake. It was not pointed out at the time, but realized by myself and others afterwards. A motion was made in new business that caught me off guard and this being my first board meeting I honestly just messed up. A second followed and without hesitation I (knowing better but accidentally) called for the vote. The Vote passed it was split 8-10. I failed to allow for discussion/debate. I did not realize it until after it had already happened. No one asked for the floor or tried to correct/ stop it from happening because I think they were also caught off guard. There was some brief banter afterwards because the motion was not thought out all the way and will have some impacts the motion didn't consider. How can this be resolved or what is the proper thing for me to do as chairman. I do fully acknowledge that I made this mistake. We do not have a parliamentarian on the board, but usually someone would have caught it prior to voting and would have called for a point of order. Thanks for any advice.

Thanks, my thoughts on going to a vote is to just try to keep the peace. Its been a long, dragged out process already. I understand what your saying and believe it to be right. Thanks.

I think I understand this well enough to surmise, once we call the congregational meeting we will need to have a motion, second discussion/debate and then can vote. I want to make sure this discussion/debate period doesn't get out of hand and take an unreasonable amount of time. I do not mind everyone having their say, but how can I keep this from just dragging on as a way to postpone the vote or "wear people out." I do not know what would be appropriate in this situation. Keep in mind there might be 75-150 people show up to participate in this matter. Everyone is well aware this meeting is to have a vote. We have encouraged discussion and debate throughout this whole process and have had much participation. I am not sure what if anything else is left to be debated but I see that it must/should be offered/allowed at this meeting as well.

By laws say that there are two congregational meetings a year to handle specific tasks and are open for any member to bring fourth other topics to be heard and possibly voted on during those scheduled meetings. It also says that specially called meeting are allowed as long as there is sufficient notice and it gives details of that that is. This is a vote to possibly leave our denomination and to cut ties with our national church (We are allowed to do this and are 100% locally owned and governed.) The full authority of the church belongs to the membership not the board. The board is a representation of its members used for the day to day running of the church not necessarily the spiritual nature of the church. The board recognized they did not have authority to address this without the memberships participation but spent considerable amount of time determining if there was a need or desire to bring it before the congregation. We finally agreed our national church was out of line with our local church and the issues have taken quiet a while to fully compile and show. Special committees were formed to gather facts and present to the board.. later the board took the committees recommendation and decided to present to the congregation. Also the Elders (spiritual leaders meet and discuss their input for the board, they too also recommended proceeding with presenting to the congregation) The vote was to be held a week or two before Christmas but people feared we should not be having a potentially divisive vote during the holiday time. It wasn't canceled or postponed officially in the congregation meeting, it just was not brought up. Now though a special meeting has been called specifically to settle this issue. The wait was done because "people" needed time to gather information and because of concerns with voting during Covid. In reality it was a way to delay proceedings by the minority of people against it in hopes that it could be prevented from happening. Rather than fight it out people allowed for the delay so they weren't seen as unreasonable or uncompassionate. You are exactly correct the longer we wait the more heated and divisive it becomes. The reason I am asking if we have to have a motion and debate at the congregational meeting again is because it has been done so much already prior to the actual vote. We have had open meetings for information sharing and open discussions now for months. Everyone has had a chance to "debate" in formal and informal settings prior to this. Including 2 more dates before the vote itself for the whole congregations participation and I am sure something will be mentioned in the next two board meetings as well (which are also open to all members, although only members of the board hold voting privilege.)

I have a couple of questions. I serve on a board for our local church that uses Roberts Rules to conduct business. We have normally scheduled meetings for the board itself (monthly) and also for the congregation as a whole (bi-yearly.) The board recommended and passed a motion to call for a vote on a specific issue during the next congregational meeting. (Every member in attendance of the congregational meetings has full voting privileges. Everyone in attendance can raise motions and the meeting is lead by the board chairman.) During the next normally scheduled board meeting (before the normal congregational meeting) a motion was passed to cancel the board motion to have the vote at the next congregational meeting. The board then approved a motion to call a "specially called congregational meeting" specifically to conduct a vote by the congregation at a later date. A notice and agenda has been sent. I am fairly sure in a called meeting only those things on the agenda can be addressed. The only thing on the agenda is to conduct the actual vote itself. During this congregational meeting does someone from the board have to motion for the vote in that meeting or can it go straight to the vote once the meeting is called to order? Since it is a called meeting if someone wants to further postpone the meeting is there a process for it or must this be voted on and revisited through an appeal? Also we have two regular board meetings between now and this time. Is the "new board" or chairman allowed to undo a called meeting by the previous board/ chair that has been settled on already? I am sorry if this is not proper at all or if it is hard to follow. We are all volunteers on our church board trying to follows Roberts Rules and do things correctly. We usually have very routine and orderly board meetings. Although our congregational meetings are open for all members and they can call a motion on anything they would like to address, usually it is only used to approve the incoming board and a budget and later to approve Elders and Deacons nominated by a nominating committee. This is the first time (that I am aware) any none routine major concern was being asked of the members to address via a called congregational meeting. Thanks for any help. -Donald