Jump to content
The Official RONR Q & A Forums

Kimmie G

Members
  • Posts

    21
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Kimmie G's Achievements

  1. Thank you everyone for your engagement. The general membership meeting was tonight. As anticipated, the complaining member gave a very different statement to the general membership from what she gave the Executive Committee which was the basis of their vote to deny the refund request. Chaos ensued. The normally 2 hour meeting lasted nearly 4 hours with vigorous debate. The vote to ratify or reject the Executive Committee's recommendation/vote/action that the complaining member's request for a refund be denied was postponed. I serve on the organization's governance committee and will be making a recommendation that the current bylaw language be changed or standard operating procedures be created to address what information goes to the general membership for ratification or rejection.
  2. Fair point. Perhaps the bylaws should be changed to replace the word recommendations with the word action.
  3. Thank you. I may have inartfully stated the issue: Is there any guidance in RONR that would address how an Executive Committee's recommendation should be presented to the general membership for ratification or rejection? 1. Should the same information presented to the Executive Committee that it considered before making its recommendation (here, statements by the complaining member) be repeated and given to the general membership before the membership votes to ratify or reject the recommendation of the Executive Committee? Or, 2. Is it proper form for the Executive Committee to present a summary of its recommendation and rationale for the same to the general membership at the next meeting for ratification or rejection? Perhaps there is no guidance in RONR for this. There is nothing this granular in the organization bylaws. Allowing the complaining member to present again to the general membership seems duplicative since the general membership is being asked to ratify or reject the Executive Committee's recommendation and the Executive Committee can explain the rationale for their recommendation during discussion before the general membership votes to ratify or reject. With another bite at the apple, the complaining member could rework her presentation in a way that is very different from what she gave to the Executive Committee and what formed the basis of the Executive Committee's recommendation.
  4. Thank you for your response. The bylaws state verbatim: "Any recommendation made by the Executive Committee shall be presented at the next regular or special meeting for ratification or rejection."
  5. A member of our non profit organization made a request for a refund of fees paid for an upcoming event after the established deadline for refunds and the request was denied by our organization's host committee. Displeased, the member made a plea directly to the Executive Board that an exception be made and the fees be refunded. The member was invited to address the Executive Board at its regularly scheduled meeting and gave a lengthy statement. After the member was excused, the Executive Board voted 11-6 that the chapter should deny the member's late request for a refund (consistent with the denial of similar late refund requests by other members). The organization's bylaws state: "Any recommendation made by the Executive Committee shall be presented at the next regular or special meeting for ratification or rejection." During the Executive Board meeting, the President stated that the member (who is her dear friend) should be allowed the opportunity to give a statement to the general membership before the general membership votes to ratify or reject the Executive Committee's recommendation. Aside from inefficient meeting management, the member's statement to the general membership could differ greatly from the statement she gave to the Executive Board which was the basis of their vote. Wouldn't it be proper for the Executive Board to present a summary of the action it took (allowed member to be heard) and their recommendation by way of vote to the general membership for ratification or rejection with discussion allowed about their recommendation?
  6. Just one more bit of food for thought on the potential pitfalls of including the "Abstain" voting option or allowing voters the option to choose, yes, no or skip the candidate and not vote on 1 candidate: Although I have decided to include "Yes" "No" and "Abstain" next to each candidate such that voters much choose 1 of those options, in the unlikely event that a candidate receives 8 "Yes" votes, 2 "No" votes and 100 "Abstain" "votes" we would only count 8+ 2 = 10 as the total votes cast FOR THAT CANDIDATE. In this example the member will be elected with only 8 affirmative votes because she will have received 80% of the 10 votes cast for that candidate. Another member with 65 yes votes and 35 no votes will not have received the requisite two-thirds, even though she received way more votes than the member in the 1st example. [65 Yes votes is only 65% of the 100 votes cast.] These may be remote possibilities but possibilities nonetheless. Having obtained some rest and more clarity based on the feedback here, if these are really treated as motions, in my humble opinion, they should be separate questions all on one ballot with a requirement to answer yes or no.
  7. Thank you. I am preparing a ballot with 19 questions corresponding to each candidate's name with a yes, no and abstain button. Thank you all for your input.
  8. Thank you. The software is Election Runner. But again to be clear, there is 1 ballot with 19 questions each with an option to select yes or no or nothing at all on each question/candidate. Again, I go back to 46:33 which provides that in an election of members of a board or committee in which votes are cast in one section of the ballot for multiple positions on the board or committee, every ballot with a vote in that section for one or more candidates is counted as one vote cast and a candidate must receive a majority (or here 2/3) of the total of such votes to be elected.
  9. Thank you. I understand all of that. The suggestion was providing and option that required the voter to choose yes or no which means the electronic ballot cannot require a response or yes or no to allow a voter to abstain by not choosing yes or not for any candidate. Similarly, the voter could simply not cast a ballot.
  10. Thank you. I may not have been clear. That is exactly what I was saying—19 questions on 1 ballot each with the option of “yes” and “no”. That said, how to explain the inability to abstain on a particular candidate if each question requires the voter to select “yes” or “no” for each candidate?
  11. I am getting caught up. So using a ballot in Election Runner, it seems you’re suggesting that vote on each candidate is a separate question for each—19 questions with “yes” and “no” options rather than 1 question with 19 options? Our meeting is tomorrow evening and ballot needs to be prepared.
  12. Thank you all for thoughtfully continuing this dialogue in the time since my last post. it appears the consensus here is that each candidate is treated like a motion “Do you approve of candidate X for membership? Mark “Yes” or “No.” The challenge members are having is reconciling the option not to take a position on a particular candidate. Some have suggested including 3 voting options: Yes, No and Abstain but some members believe that violates 45:3. As the Chair, at this point, I want to guide the club on this issue in a way that presents a ballot that is the least likely to elicit challenges to the process. We are voting on new members tomorrow but we will have officer elections next month. I truly appreciate your thoughtful analysis.
×
×
  • Create New...