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Refusing to change agenda


Guest Linda Huizenga

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Our president of our agricultural federation has requested the directors to forward agenda items to be included on the agenda. However our secretary has refused to change the agenda stating that it has served the board well for a number of years and changes should be brought to the board to be voted upon. Is it not the duty of the secretary to prepare the order of business for the president whichever way she would like it?

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When you arrive at the meeting, if the agenda is presented, move to amend it. If it's not presented, move to adopt an agenda that you favor.

the meeting belongs to its members and not to the president or the secretary individually.

-Bob

Can the president ask the directors beforehand if they have agenda items and put them on the proposed agenda?

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Can the president ask the directors beforehand if they have agenda items and put them on the proposed agenda?

Sure, but so can you. So can anybody.

In many societies, especially where the members are either trusting of the president, or merely lazy, the president makes up a draft agenda, and presents it in advance or at the meeting. Over time, people forget that there's nothing in RONR to require this, and it begins to fall under the authority of Alweighs Dunnit deSway's Rule's of Order, Never Revised.

There's nothing horrible about it as long as you remember a few things.

  • An agenda is seldom really necessary in ordinary societies. In most cases, the standard order of business in RONR is enough to keep you efficiently on track.
  • If presented for adoption at the beginning of a meeting, the draft agenda is open for amendment (add/change/delete items) and debate, and requires majority approval.
  • If never presented for adoption, it is not binding--in fact it is not even an agenda. It's just a piece of paper, a memo, a list of things to remember. It has no more parliamentary weight than the shopping list in your other pocket.
  • Anyone, not just the president, can do all of these things, and present their own proposed agenda, either by moving it as an amendment in the nature of a substitute, or by offering to move it should the president's agenda be defeated.
  • Something not listed on the agenda can be brought up out of the blue (unless it falls under a rule requiring previous notice) under New Business.

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Our president of our agricultural federation has requested the directors to forward agenda items to be included on the agenda. However our secretary has refused to change the agenda stating that it has served the board well for a number of years and changes should be brought to the board to be voted upon. Is it not the duty of the secretary to prepare the order of business for the president whichever way she would like it?

No rule in RONR empowers the secretary to prepare the order of business for the president whichever way she would like it.

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If the president/chair would like to have a proposed agenda circulated in advance of a meeting, do we need a formal motion?

No, anyone who wants to can circulate any proposed anything in advance of a meeting. In order to make the proposed agenda into the real agenda, that requires a formal motion and a majority vote. And the motion is fully debatable, and the proposed agenda is fully amendable in the process. So what was proposed may end up completely different from what actually gets approved.

And of course anyone, not just the president, has the same rights.

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If the president/chair would like to have a proposed agenda circulated in advance of a meeting, do we need a formal motion?

I fear you have a carts and horses problem here. A "formal motion" can be made only IN a meeting, and by then the agenda has alread been sent around - or not...

Nothing prevents the president from sending out what he would like to see dealt with at the meeting. As noted by others, the members at the meeting can amend -- or completely ignore -- the president's agenda if they wish.

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No, anyone who wants to can circulate any proposed anything in advance of a meeting. In order to make the proposed agenda into the real agenda, that requires a formal motion and a majority vote. And the motion is fully debatable, and the proposed agenda is fully amendable in the process. So what was proposed may end up completely different from what actually gets approved.

And of course anyone, not just the president, has the same rights.

For those bodies who are bound by rule to an established order of business, the adoption of an agenda that does not conform requires a two-thirds vote, since the adoption of the motion, in effect, suspends the rules, RONR (10th ed.), p. 98, l. 33, through p. 99, l. 3.

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