The president or vice-president will not attend

[Guest St41]

The president and vice-president will not attend their (non profit assoation) meeting to stop the elections because they know they are being voted out. How do you have a meeting with out them or can you have a meeting without them. With that they cancled the meeting by phone text message. So there should be a meeting somehow due to the fact that the cancelation was made 2 days befor the meeting.

[Guest Edgar]

The meeting can, and should, be held as scheduled. If the president and vice-president are absent, the secretary (or any member if the secretary is also absent) should call the meeting to order and conduct a brief election for a chair pro tem (a temporary presiding officer).

There is no provision in RONR for cancelling a meeting.

[Gary Novosielski]

The president and vice-president will not attend their (non profit assoation) meeting to stop the elections because they know they are being voted out. How do you have a meeting with out them or can you have a meeting without them. With that they cancled the meeting by phone text message. So there should be a meeting somehow due to the fact that the cancelation was made 2 days befor the meeting.

Unless your bylaws have some provision for officers canceling meetings (which RONR does not) then they do not have that power. The assembly (or whatever body schedules meetings) could conceivably have changed it if there was time to do so at a prior meeting, but it doesn't sound like that happened.

In any case, they're not essential to holding the meeting. Just elect a chair pro-tem and vote them out as planned.

[David A Foulkes]

For reference to electing a chair pro tem, see RONR (11th Ed.) p. 453 ll. 3-16. Note that upon the arrival of the president or vice-president, the office of the chair pro tem is terminated and the president or vice-president would continue as the presiding officer. In such a case, and also should the president or vice-president then fail to preside in a proper manner, they can be again replaced by a chair pro tem by Suspending the Rules (RONR 11, p. 260-267) "so as to take away from him the authority to preside during all or part of a given session." (RONR p. 652 ll. 3-11)

[Rev Ed]

Of course, if the membership wanted the President and/or Vice President to attend, then on the meeting date the Secretary would call the meeting to order and proceed with an election of Chair pro tem. Once a Chair pro tem is elected, someone could make a motion to adjourn the meeting to another date. If passed the meeting is over until the next date.