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Committee meetings without a chairman


DebbieinFL

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Several committees in our organization have had members elected to serve within but a chairman was not designated for them. Our structure calls for the chairman of each committee to be designated by a Nominating Committee (NC). The NC has currently run out of service (is it correct to say it is "vacant"?) and no other provision is stated to permit the naming of a chairman. Minus the chair or any specific officers how does a committee call itself into meeting? Can it meet and conduct business?

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The NC has currently run out of service (is it correct to say it is "vacant"?) and no other provision is stated to permit the naming of a chairman.

Is it possible to appoint a new Nominating Committee to solve this problem? And no, I don't think it's quite correct to say the committee is vacant, since the NC would not normally have members at this time.

Minus the chair or any specific officers how does a committee call itself into meeting?

The first-named member should call the first meeting, and future meetings can be called by the adoption of a motion by the committee.

Can it meet and conduct business?

Yes. The committee can elect a Chairman Pro Tempore at the beginning of each meeting. If previous notice is provided, a Chairman Pro Tempore could be elected to serve for a longer period - such as, for instance, until a permanent Chairman may be properly appointed.

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Thank you for your responses.

Is it possible to appoint a new Nominating Committee to solve this problem? And no, I don't think it's quite correct to say the committee is vacant, since the NC would not normally have members at this time.

I don't think so. Due to recent changes to the manual covering committee procedures, it seems that the election of a Nominating Committee will be delayed until after these other committees must meet to conduct business. In our group the NC serves year round. The changes have caused the current NC to end its term without having a new one elected to replace it. That's why I thought the term "vacant" would apply.

The first-named member should call the first meeting, and future meetings can be called by the adoption of a motion by the committee.

Yes. The committee can elect a Chairman Pro Tempore at the beginning of each meeting. If previous notice is provided, a Chairman Pro Tempore could be elected to serve for a longer period - such as, for instance, until a permanent Chairman may be properly appointed.

Could you give the Robert's Rule numbers for these so I can look them up? Concerning the Chairman Pro Tempore: what constitutes previous notice?

Thanks again.

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In our group the NC serves year round. The changes have caused the current NC to end its term without having a new one elected to replace it. That's why I thought the term "vacant" would apply.

Hm. Well, with these facts, I think I will say that I cannot conclusively say whether it is a vacancy without knowing more of the details about these rule changes - of course, such discussion would be beyond the scope of this forum, and since you say a new committee cannot be appointed at this time, it appears to be a purely semantic question anyway.

The reason I hesitate is because a vacancy is typically defined as a case in which a position is vacated prior to the end of a term. If a term ends and the election is not completed at the scheduled time, it is an incomplete election. As I understand it, due to the assembly's rule changes and the lack of a proviso to facilitate the transition, the term has ended but the scheduled time for election has not been reached. This is an unusual situation that does not neatly fit into either category.

Concerning the Chairman Pro Tempore: what constitutes previous notice?

Previous notice may be given by announcing the election at the previous meeting (provided the next meeting is within a quarterly interval) or by including notice of the election in the call of the meeting.

Electing a chairman pro-tempore for a meeting is pretty much standard, but I have misplaced it.

RONR, 10th ed., pg. 437, lines 13-17.

Electing a pro-tempore chairman for more than one session is around p. 440.

More specifically, RONR, 10th ed., pg. 437, lines 20-25.

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