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I had a board member make a motion to reprimand another board member's conduct and to place sanctions against the board member. The motion was given in writing because it was quite expansive and all the board members were given copies to have during the making of the motion. In the end, the motion was to accept the written motion and submit it into our minutes and we voted to approve the motion. The reprimanded board member is challenging whether a motion can be made in writing and if this motion can be submitted as a document instead of verbally. Can anyone tell me a definitive answer?

A relatively complex motion (5-6) pages was distributed to the membership in advance with the agenda. At the meeting, when we reached the point in the agenda at which that motion was to be discussed, and the chair invited the author of the motion to introduce it, the author proceded to hand out a new version of the proposed motion, with at least a full page of additional material added, and other changes underlined. A member protested that s/he had studied the earlier version carefully, and prepared notes on the same, but was not prepared to discuss this new version, given its complexity, without time to study it. Nevertheless, after some parliamentary wrangling, but without the new version of the motion being read, the motion was debated and passed after debate had been cut off by a successful motion to "call the question." Is something wrong here? I guess my most basic question is: What is the status of a motion that is distributed with the agenda? May the members, who were preparted to disucss the version distributed with the minutes, be surprized by a new version at the moment the motion comes up for discussion? Thanks!