lyndaschram Posted June 25, 2011 at 11:12 AM Report Share Posted June 25, 2011 at 11:12 AM Our board of 7 members meets once a month yet our policies and procedures state that we have to publish our board meeting minutes to the membership within 2 weeks of the board meeting. Can we have the secretary email her first draft out to the board members for comments and after everyone has responded, have a majority of the board meet and say that they have approved the minutes so we could then email them out to the membership. Would you call this meeting of the majority of 4 people a special meeting? Would we have to put a notice out to the membership that we were meeting to aprove the minutes?I think I have been advised before that you can't approve minutes in a special meeting. Is that correct? Help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David A Foulkes Posted June 25, 2011 at 11:47 AM Report Share Posted June 25, 2011 at 11:47 AM Our board of 7 members meets once a month yet our policies and procedures state that we have to publish our board meeting minutes to the membership within 2 weeks of the board meeting. Nothing wrong with that, although RONR doesn't say you have to, so it's your rule you need to abide by. What the secretary needs to do is make sure this initial "2-week" version of the minutes is stamped DRAFT!!! in hopes of indicating to the membership it is not the final, approved version. Then, after the minutes are approved at the next regular monthly meeting, the secretary can reissue an APPROVED version of the minutes to the membership, with possible corrections as they may have been offered and accepted/adopted. Can we have the secretary email her first draft out to the board members for comments and after everyone has responded, have a majority of the board meet and say that they have approved the minutes so we could then email them out to the membership. Would you call this meeting of the majority of 4 people a special meeting? Would we have to put a notice out to the membership that we were meeting to aprove the minutes?I think I have been advised before that you can't approve minutes in a special meeting. Is that correct? Help. Making a lot of work here, I think. Special meetings don't approve minutes unless that is why the special meeting is called. But I don't think it's so important to do that, especially considering you'd have to have a special meeting for every regular meeting, and that's just overkill. Scrap this idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tctheatc Posted June 25, 2011 at 12:59 PM Report Share Posted June 25, 2011 at 12:59 PM Scrap this idea.Not to mention that you appear to be alluding (possibly) to hinting (maybe) that you'd only call some of the members to meet to approve the minutes, as opposed to all board members being called/notified. I'd hate to think of a scenario where something contentious came up in approving the minutes and the uninvited then objected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lyndaschram Posted June 26, 2011 at 09:54 PM Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2011 at 09:54 PM Thank you David and tctheatc.1. We have sent "DRAFT" marked minutes out to the membership for several months now and it is really confusing people so we don't want to do that anymore.2. It is a crudy rule that we have to send out the minutes before we get a chance to have another meeting BUT we are revising our bylaws this year and WILL fix this but our membership annual meeting to vote on it won't be till March 2012!!3. Oh, please don't think that we would ever try to approve something in an advantageous manner. But you are right, we must to all we can so no appearance of this is ever given.4. Therefore, even though it is a lot of work, I think we should send a notice out for a special meeting for the next 9 months just for passing these minutes.(like I don't have better things to do with my time....but I still think it is better than sending the confusing drafts.) Our secretary has the minutes ready the day after the meeting! 5.We did just 2 days ago vote to suspend our policy to HAVE to send the minutes in two weeks after our board meeting to take the pressure off. We never understood that we could do that before a precious PRP started "educating us". However we are trying to honor that policy IF we can. The problem was that we had a president that was er, "quarrelsome" with most fo the board so it was hard to get the minutes approved. He just resigned a month ago but is still asking that we include things that he said in his last meeting in the minutes. We try to tell him that we are recording reports, actions and motions and not everything said...That all to say that since the contentious part of approving the minutes gone, we should be able to agree pretty quickly on the minutes when we get together now.6. Can I write a motion that "their shall be a special meeting for the board at noon at 'such and such an address' on the Friday following the monthly board meeting for the sole purpose of approving that month's board meeting minutes until March 2012"? and thereby, not have to send notices for special meetings out each month?Thanks already for your input and time,Lynda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David A Foulkes Posted June 26, 2011 at 09:59 PM Report Share Posted June 26, 2011 at 09:59 PM 6. Can I write a motion that "their shall be a special meeting for the board at noon at 'such and such an address' on the Friday following the monthly board meeting for the sole purpose of approving that month's board meeting minutes until March 2012"? and thereby, not have to send notices for special meetings out each month?No.Now, do your bylaws authorize Special Meetings of the Board? If not, then you can't have them until you amend your bylaws to allow for them. If they are authorized, the bylaws should also stipulate who (president?) can call them, and what the required notice is for them. See page 89-90 in RONR 10th Edition for details.Lynda - two nutty ideas. 1. If you have a realllllllly good sense of how long your meetings normally (and regularly) take, then you could call your Special Meetings to occur just shortly after they adjourn. So, if your meetings take almost an hour, and start at 7pm, by calling for the Special Meeting at 8pm, that means everyone just has to sit around for a few minutes after adjournment before the president calls the special meeting to order. You approve the minutes, then go home.2. At the end of each regular meeting, just before adjournment, adopt a motion to Fix The Time to Adjourn To (See section 22, p. 234ff) and make it for two minutes from that moment. Then adjourn. This creates what is called an "adjourned meeting", which is actually a continuation of the previous meeting. In two minutes, the president calls the "adjourned meeting" to order. As noted on page 456 (line 22-26), the adjourned meeting approves the minutes of the meeting that established it. After those minutes are approved, adjourn and you're done. The minutes (of the "real" meeting) having actually been approved, the secretary can now issue them within the two week period.This way, you don't have to drag everyone back together days later to another meeting just to perform some administrative work that should really be allowed to wait until the next meeting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.