Guest Cameron Posted February 15, 2012 at 03:01 PM Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 at 03:01 PM Hi AllI have a situation where I need some "official" RRO direction.A Board I'm involved with but don't sit on was due a report by May 1st 2011 which was to be directed to General membership once accepted. That report was presented and contained a number of action items and motions. Questions arose from the report and a follow up report was due October 1st 2011. That second report was delivered before the due date, clarifying the action items and motions as they'd requested. The Board didn't meet a quorum on 2 occassions when they discussed the second report so it didn't vote on any of the items that the report contained. The report deadline of October 1st 2011 passed and now the action items and motions essentially are just sitting there. The chair of the Board and 2 others on the Board (of 10 people total) don't want to move the report or any of the action items/motions forward to General membership. General membership awaits the report and what it contains but as the Chair does not want to move the report he has indicated that on 2 occasions the Board met (when they were without quorum) and that there is no interest in moving the report forward or to general membership.As General membership asked for the intial report, my feeling is that the Board is obliged to deliver. Unfortunately the Chair seems to feel he can make unilateral decisions and the whole thing is stalled. As the Board operates under RRO, I'm hoping that there is some mechanism that General membership can refer to to force the Board to meet and vote. Reading between the lines you can see that this Board has a couple of influential members and a number of individuals that are weak which is very unfortunate but that's another issue and will hopefully be solved by the next election.Does anyone have any suggestions?Cameron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trina Posted February 15, 2012 at 03:32 PM Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 at 03:32 PM Does the general membership actually want (or need) to have the board vote on matters arising out of the report? Or does the general membership just want to see the report and deal with it directly?If the general membership "asked for the initial report" as you say, how did the board get involved in the process? Why didn't the committee (was it a committee?) that produced the report just report directly to the general membership? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Cameron Posted February 15, 2012 at 03:56 PM Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 at 03:56 PM Hi TrinaThanks for responding. This is a unique and frustrating situation. We have 2 Boards, which govern over 2 associations. 1 handles marketing and advocacy; the other regulation, credentialling, ethics etc. Most of the General membership are members of both associatioins (only the regulation association is mandatory). General membership has asked a specifically created committee which I chair to research and report on combining these 2 Boards into one which would carry out all the duties of the General membership. The regulation Board is in support, the association Board (the one that is doing nothing and caused me to write the post) is against the 2 Bods joining and therefore are holding up any further reporting to General membership.I am hoping to use the section of RRO regarding "Remidies for abuse of authority by the chair in a meeting" (which I haven't read yet I'll admit) to force this association Board to vote. If you can imagine a group of people who just would like to do nothing (neither move an item forward nor declare that they are not moving an item forward) this is how that Board behaves.As the regulation Board has no real authority to move the association Board, we're somewhat at an impass. I want to see if there is some way to move this report forward to the General membership without having the association Board doing anything.Cameron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trina Posted February 15, 2012 at 04:09 PM Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 at 04:09 PM Exactly which body established the committee? There seem to be 4 options -- general membership M (the marketing etc. bunch), board M (the ones refusing to take action), general membership R (the regulation etc. group), or board R.Did the charge to the committee specify this reporting process (such as both boards having to vote on the report before the general membership of either association gets to hear anything)?Remedies for abuse of authority by the chair in a meeting isn't going to help, it seems, if the problem is lack of quorum at the meetings... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Cameron Posted February 15, 2012 at 05:11 PM Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 at 05:11 PM the committee was formed by the joint resolution of the 2 Boards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Cameron Posted February 15, 2012 at 05:21 PM Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 at 05:21 PM woops, too quick on the reply.. and the committee was to provide reports back at specified times (which we did of course) to both Boards. The notion was that the Boards would review and once satisfied then move the final report onto General membership for a national vote to amalgamate both Boards. Because the marketing Board won't vote or do anything (move forward or say they aren't moving forward) we're stalled. The Regulation Board is about ready to take over the whole matter but that would appear hostile, which I suppose it is. I'm hoping that there's some segment to Robert's Rules that will force the marketing Board to have a meeting and hold a vote. If it passes, great, we move forward to general membership. If it doesn't pass, they have to inform general membership, which they don't want to say they've voted it down. They really just want people to forget about it by my committee has spent $120k to do the work of arranging our new corporate structure so the marketing board won't want to wear the "we voted it down".Sadly, as I said above, the chair of the marketing Board and 1 other person on his Board want to stall this whole process and the rest of his Board are spineless. I need some mechanism to cause this to move, and am hoping that the "abuse of authority" would help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Martin Posted February 16, 2012 at 12:54 AM Report Share Posted February 16, 2012 at 12:54 AM I am hoping to use the section of RRO regarding "Remidies for abuse of authority by the chair in a meeting" (which I haven't read yet I'll admit) to force this association Board to vote. If you can imagine a group of people who just would like to do nothing (neither move an item forward nor declare that they are not moving an item forward) this is how that Board behaves.As the regulation Board has no real authority to move the association Board, we're somewhat at an impass. I want to see if there is some way to move this report forward to the General membership without having the association Board doing anything.I'm hoping that there's some segment to Robert's Rules that will force the marketing Board to have a meeting and hold a vote... I need some mechanism to cause this to move, and am hoping that the "abuse of authority" would help.Well, you ultimately can't force the board to vote on the issue, but you can take it out of the board's hands and let the membership address it directly. See information on the motion to Discharge a Committee (RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 310-315). As the name implies, it's generally used for committees, but I see no reason why it can't be used in this case. Since the board has failed to report when instructed, the motion requires only a majority vote in this case.The section on "abuse of authority by the chair" requires a spine to use properly, so I doubt it will be of much help to the board members. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trina Posted February 16, 2012 at 07:02 PM Report Share Posted February 16, 2012 at 07:02 PM Well, you ultimately can't force the board to vote on the issue, but you can take it out of the board's hands and let the membership address it directly. See information on the motion to Discharge a Committee (RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 310-315). As the name implies, it's generally used for committees, but I see no reason why it can't be used in this case. Since the board has failed to report when instructed, the motion requires only a majority vote in this case....The part that's implicit in what Mr. Martin says is that the general membership can use this tool to discharge a subordinate body (the board). The 'you' he mentions is the membership, not you, Cameron, the committee chair. Since you (meaning Guest_Cameron) said that "General membership has asked a specifically created committee which I chair to research and report on combining these 2 Boards into one...", I'm hopeful that the general membership actually has a practical way to give instructions. On the other hand, the mention of "a national vote" raises concerns as to whether the general membership can actually (in a practical sense) organize to make such a decision (discharging the recalcitrant board from its participation in the process, and receiving the committee report directly).I'm still curious how the quorum problem (mentioned also in your title) plays into the question -- is the president of the non-cooperative board somehow causing a lack of quorum at meetings? Lying about quorum at meetings? I don't clearly understand that factor from what you've posted so far, but maybe I just missed something... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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