Voting - Executive vs Members

[Guest Anna]

I belong to a non-profit organization where all elected officers are volunteers and any voting members are required to attend a certain number of meetings before being eligible to vote.

The President, VP, Secretary, Treasurer and 9 directors voted unanimously twice in Director only meetings, once for the budget recommendations and once in regards to hiring a caretaker, both times at the monthly general business meeting the voting members (who had just attended enough meetings to be eligible to vote, and who up until that time had never attended or volunteered for this organization) came in and made a motion and voted against both of the Boards decisions.

What is the purpose of a Board (who is ultimately responsible for the organization) if every decision they make is voted against at the next meeting?

Thank You!

[George Mervosh]

See the last part of Shmuel Gerber's answer to virtually the same question as yours:

http://robertsrules.forumflash.com/index.php?/topic/15063-overturning-a-motion/page__fromsearch__1

[Trina]

Take a look here.

Did the membership make a motion to rescind the prior action of the board (requires higher voting threshold than a plain vanilla motion)?

Also, if the caretaker was actually hired pursuant to the board decision, that is not an action that can be undone just by rescinding the motion to hire -- once the person was hired, the board's motion (depending on its wording) was probably fully executed. Once executed, a motion cannot be rescinded. That's not to say the membership couldn't order the board to fire the caretaker; however, there would perhaps be legal issues involved that are outside the realm of parliamentary procedure.

As for the motion on budget recommendations, whom was the recommendation supposed to be presented to? Was the presentation to some entity other than the general membership?

[Rev Ed]

And in part, by the general membership retaining the rights to over rule a Board (and to provide direction for it), it keeps the Board on track. As others have stated, it may be impossible to stop a hiring once it occurred and there might be legal reasons why a firing may be difficult, the general membership may wish to receive more information about the hiring, which would be their right.