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How does the chair call a stand at ease, and can members motion for it. Is it debatable or Amendable and does it need to be voted on?

I am VP of a local organization. Our purpose is to raise funds for a fire department. At the last quarterly membership meeting the President read aloud a contract he signed giving away ownership of our only 3 buildings. He did not fully read the contract. Many yaddah yaddah yaddahs. This came as a surprise to myself and the Secretary. Previously we had been approached by another organization for them to take ownership of our 3 buildings while we still owned and operated everything inside. The board decided to have the corporation vote on going forward with negotiations. Really shouldn’t have been a decision as the state statutes require a corporation vote on the sale of assets that are not a common part of an organization’s business. And that something of this magnitude belongs in the members hands. The minutes of the members meeting state: “ A motion was made by NAME to accept the NAME (other organization) offer to take ownership of the buildings and allow the Executive Board and NAME (President) to negotiate and sign the terms of transfer of ownership to the buildings on behalf of the corporation. NAME seconded the motion. All were in favor, no one opposed.” State statutes do not allow for even the board to make this decision. (Just learned that.) So the motion goes against statutes which makes the motion null and void according to RONR. Correct? Also, the motion itself says that the board and the president will negotiate AND sign the terms of transfer of ownership. So in that case would the contract be null and void because even the motion itself (had it been valid) was not carried out since the board had no opportunity to see the contract before it was signed, and thus did not sign it themselves? The bylaws do not give any 1 individual this level of decision power. Signing that contract before anyone else saw it was in effect making a solo decision on the matter. Which goes against the core of any democratic organization. I made a motion at the last board meeting to have both the board and the corporation vote on said contract. I was given the information above as reason why no votes needed to be taken. Two people said nothing. Both had previously let me know they were not happy the contract was signed without our knowledge. 5 people told me the above plus a special meeting we had (to have the members vote) again as reasons no votes need be taken. Honestly, I think the minutes have been altered. I do not remeber the motion being stated that way. Was never given a copy of those minutes until I questioned the procedures on this contract, so I have no way to check. The person that seconded the motion also does not remember it being stated that way and states they “would never have seconded a motion to accept the offer. I was expecting a final negotiated contract from the board to be voted on by the members at the meeting where we were instead surprised by the signing.” I do not know yet if my motion was recorded in the minutes. I will only know when the minutes are read this coming Tuesday. (They are not sent out to anyone but the President from the Secretary.) To my knowledge every motion is to be recorded in the minutes. That’s why I made sure to make a motion rather than include it as part of the informal discussions. In my head this all makes sense. Procedurally from two different In my head this all makes sense. But I need someone outside my organization to show me any flaws in my logic. Am I right here that the motion is not valid for either of these two reasons? What motion and when do you think I should make it to bring this to the attention of the membership? (Sorry still new at this and we don’t seem to be following RONR very well so my experience means very little.) And considering the person that did this is the person whose job duty states they are to make sure we follow all procedure, am I wrong for wanting an investigation as to why this happened? And possibly call for a vote to remove them from office should willful misconduct be shown? If a District Attorney wanted to, there is potentially a crime here. The man gave away property that did not belong to him without the organization that owns it giving approval (in the form of a member vote) to the terms which also doen’t approve the asset transfer.

Our club wants to change our bylaws From: SEC. 1. Parliamentary procedure. The rules of parliamentary procedure set forth in the latest edition of Robert’s Rules of Order shall be used as a guide. To: SEC. 1. Parliamentary procedure. The rules of parliamentary procedure set forth in the latest edition of Robert’s Rules of Order shall be used as a guide where existing (club name) tradition and procedures are not already in practice. There is really only one person who claims to know what we have always done and in most cases that person has been proven wrong. I believe that since there is no physical documentation for past practices and no procedures were ever written down, RONR should be the only deciding arbiter. Is there any RONR or other argument against allowing this change? I am familiar with Page 19 of the 11th Edition. What I want to do is keep that as valid for my club and not allow them to negate Page 19 by adding this to the bylaws.

Can anyone tell me what is the primary difference between RONR and the Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure used by the American Institute of Parliamentarians? Much appreciated

I have a question with regards to a difference between the 10th and 11th Edtions of RONR. Pages 92-93 of the 10th Edtion, with regards to Executive Session, state: "In most organizations, except those operating under the lodge system, by practicse or sometimes, by rule, membership meetings are open to the public, but board or committee meetings are customarily held in executive session." The emphasis is mine, and my question is this: Does anyone know the rationale why the part about Boards customarily holding meetings in Executive Session was removed in the 11th Edition? Of course if the custom to do so was started unther the 10th Edition, Board meetings would still normally be held in Executve Session by custom as the 11th Edition allows for this (page 95 ll 26-27.)

My organization will be making some bylaw amendments due to the clarification around electronic meetings which was provided in the 11th edition of RONR. Question: With each new edition of RONR that is published, is there a grace period/deadline date that is given to organizations to afford them time to bring their governing documents into compliance with the new RONR guidelines? For example, 30 days after the new edition of RONR is published? 90 days? As soon as practicable?