Board of Directors passed resolution unanimously...now President is postponing general membership vote for 2 to 3 meetings...is this legal?

[Guest c. johnson]

I am President Elect for a non-profit with about 75 members. Our organization is to use Roberts Rules of Order as our Parliamentarian Authority according to our bylaws but it it has not been followed except for an occasional motion and 2nd. Recently I have been studying in preparation to assume greater responsibilities in June. I recently crafted a resolution changing our bylaws to include a new standing committee. It was unanimously passed by the Board of Directors at October's Board Meeting. It is to go before the general assembly now to be voted on but required a 10 day written notification. The President of the organization purposely missed the deadline to notify the membership of the vote.. however she instructed the parliamentarian to notify the membership of two other changes to the bylaws. When I questioned her she said there were too many items on the agenda for this month and she wants to delay presenting it to the general membership until January's meeting....is there anything in Roberts Rules that states the once a bylaw change passes the Board it should be presented to the general membership at the next meeting of the general membership?

[Burke Balch]

RONR does not specifically deal with a situation in which the Board of Directors recommends bylaw amendments for consideration by the general membership. If notice was not given the requisite ten days before the next general membership meeting, the bylaw amendment in question indeed may not be adopted at that meeting. However, unless there is some peculiar limitation in your bylaws on who may give notice of a bylaw amendment, there is no reason why you (or anyone else) may not give notice of the bylaw amendment, either at a general membership meeting (applicable for consideration of the amendment at the next general membership meeting), see RONR (11th ed.), p. 122, l. 19 to p. 123, l. 33, or by providing the notice to the secretary to include in the call of the next meeting (see id. p. 123, l. 35 to p. 124, l. 6.

To be clear: even if the organization's governing documents require that, to be considered by the general membership, a bylaw amendment must be passed or recommended by the Board of Directors, that does not mean that, once this has been done, the giving of notice is restricted to the President ( or, certainly, "the parliamentarian"). Unless the bylaws are specific in restricting who may give notice of a bylaw amendment, there is no reason why you cannot be the one to do so.