Filling Resigned VP Vacancy

[Tom Williams]

Our vice president resigned abruptly from office and her resignation was accepted. Our bylaws do not outline a procedure for filling this vacancy. On p.279 of RONR, 10th Ed. (I do not yet have the newest edition) I find the following. "In the case of a resignation from office, unless the bylaws provide otherwise, the assembly cannot proceed to fill the vacancy immediately since notice is a requirement."

The date for the next regular meeting of our members is set in advance. It is always the first Thursday of each month. Since we would like to fill this vacancy at our next regular meeting, what notice are we required by RONR to give in this case?

Also, during that meeting, should we just ask for nominations from the floor, or should we appoint a nominations committee to select candidates?

[jstackpo]

If a reminder notification of the meeting has not yet gone out, put a notice of the election in it, and take nominations from the floor.

Otherwise, give notice at your Feb meeting of an election to fill the position in March.

If you want to, you, the membership, can appoint a nominating committee (or elect people to it) in February to report in March.

[Tom Williams]

Thanks for the reply. Does giving notice at the February meeting satisfy the requirement for giving notice, since not all of our members will be in attendance at any one meeting? Also, since all of our regular meetings are set in advance (all regular meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month), we don't have a method in place to "put a notice of the election" in a reminder notification. Are you saying that in this situation we should mail out notices to all members? For us, this would be a big expense, but we are trying to follow the RONR rules. If we should do that, we will do it.

[David A Foulkes]

Thanks for the reply. Does giving notice at the February meeting satisfy the requirement for giving notice, since not all of our members will be in attendance at any one meeting?

Per RONR, there are two methods of providing notice. 1) Including it in the call of the meeting (which you apparently don't send out, since all your meeting dates are preset [in the bylaws?]), or, as an alternative, 2) providing notice at THE previous meeting (as long as it will be within a quarterly time interval). Giving notice at the Feburary meeting for a motion to be made at the March meeting satisfies the RONR requirement of notice. The fact that some members won't be in attendance does not affect this. There's nothing wrong with giving the absent members a(n unofficial) heads up by phone or email, I suppose, but that in no way invalidates the notice. See RONR 11th Ed., page 121.

[Tom Williams]

Thanks for the additional response. This helps us as we try to operate within RONR rules.