Alicia Connelly

Thank you Josh for taking the additional time to respond to my questions. I like to be sure that I am not speaking from my opinion but have the best information I can possibly get.

Josh, I came back to reread the responses to my questions as I am now hearing members of the association telling me that our parliamentary law is nothing more than a guide that we can follow or not. I noticed this last line about adopting special rules. I want to make sure I understand this completely (I will also compare with the McConnell book since that is our parliamentary law currently). We are an HOA, while board meetings are required by our bylaws to be open to members, we have no voting rights at board meetings, just through written ballot, and voting at the annual or a special meeting of members. Our bylaws are amended by a vote of the membership of the Association, not the board. When it comes to meeting procedure and special rules of order, you are saying that the members of the association still need to approve them and not just the board? We were interpreting that differently. However, we do have rules for meetings in our bylaws that in order to change would require a vote of the membership, so it does make sense. - Alicia

Thank you for the help. Yes, that is exactly what has happened to us and it's not going to go over well or be easily explained to our organization why this is important and material to how we do business. What we need is a parliamentarian to come in and explain it, but too many members won't allow that due to cost. I appreciate everyone's help. I'll be printing up your replies to present to the board.

Thank you all for your responses, this has been very helpful. I was able to find a copy of rules by McConnell Productions and sure enough on page 5 it says "This book can be adopted as a parliamentary authority." The authors do claim that it is aligned with Robert's Rule of Order Newly Revised through the 11th edition, albeit, leaving out changes since the 10th edition that they feel are complex but they are not clear on specifics. This all means that because of the way our bylaws are written our authority is this book and not RONR. I see some possible actions for us. 1. Use this manual and make sure our rules of order and make sure our policies and rules are properly aligned. 2. Use this manual and approve special rules of order that incorporates anything we find is in RONR that we are using now (or want to use) that is not in the McConnell book. 3. Change our bylaws to use RONR as our parliamentary authority. When I first began looking for a better understanding of parliamentary procedure and Robert's Rules, this was not one of the parliamentary manuals that came up as a simpler, more "user friendly" option to RONR. I'm curious as to your thoughts on why we should or should not consider changing our parliamentary authority to RONR, and if you have knowledge on the McConnell Productions book, what is good or not so good about it. I know I'm asking a lot, we have a very divided organization and I need to be as informed as I can be before I bring this to the attention of our members who all think we follow RONR.

Thank you. I may have another question after I receive the book. You have been very helpful.

Thank you. I admit, I made the assumption that "Robert McConnell Productions" was the publisher and never verified that. I've ordered a copy, it looks like the 3rd edition is the most current (fingers crossed I didn't missed yet something else). Is this manual more a less a slimmed down version of RONR with much of the same material?

I am a member of an HOA with and article in our bylaws that states: “Board and Association Meeting Procedure. In matters relating to procedure that are not outlined, the latest copy of Robert’s Rules of Order by Robert McConnell Productions will apply.” Three of the board members that have said that Robert’s Rules is just a “default” or “guide” and we do not need to follow them all, the board can choose which ones they want to use. (no special rules needed). One member interprets this as the board being able to use any source, whether Robert's Rules or not, for rules of order. This has resulted in this board member using examples from other HOA's, PTA's, governments, and school boards and their interpretations of Robert's Rules, which has not always been correct. This board members wrote a policy that condenses the rules of order to states that the board is limited to the use of the rules and limiting allowed motions to: main motion, table (which is defined incorrectly as postponing a discussion to a future date), referring to committee, adjourning a meeting and amending. He also allows the use of point of order. While true that these are probably the primary motions that will be used at meetings, and all of the manual will not be needed, I am concerned that the is compromises the principles of parliamentary law by taking away rights of members and will lead to more difficulty with consistency in the management of the HOA; If a board can pick and choose which rules they want to follow, what is to prevent a new board from doing the same and allowing a majority to manipulate the entire process and silence the minority. Please provide any guidance you can.