business end at the end of the meeting or when the business is finished?

[Guest Colleen Lawler]

I am not familiar with Robert's Rules. In a meeting with a quorum present we voted to finish a document (with no time deadline), even if the quorum was no longer present. However, at the end of the document, the meeting was adjourned. A week later we are going through the secretaries' draft to ensure there are no duplications or ommissions. Some items could to be separated (made into 2), and some could be joined together for brevity. Did our amendment to the rules, cover further revision without a quorum, or does the document stand as left when the meeting was adjourned?

[Rev Ed]

Deciding to go ahead with a meeting even if quorum is lost goes against the principles of RONR in my opinion - quorum is meaningless if it is not followed.

But I am not totally with you. Was there a vote on the document or not? If there was a vote, a decision was made. If not, it is still a pending motion when the meeting adjoruned and would come up under "Unfinished Business" at the next meeting.

[Trina]

An assembly cannot vote to set aside its quorum requirement for conducting business (the quorum rule simply can't be suspended). So, you did not actually make an 'amendment to the rules' when you all voted to finish working on the document. The quorumless group certainly could not adopt the finished document on behalf of the organization, for example.

What you did sounds somewhat like a motion to commit (i.e. form a committee to keep hammering out the details of the document), with the committee members being whoever remained in the meeting room. Since you didn't actually set up a committee, however, I'd be reluctant to extend the analogy past the end of the meeting. For one thing, which people properly have the responsibility to continue working on the document at this point (i.e. who are the 'committee' members)?

On the other hand, since the final status of the document at the end of the meeting has no particular authority anyway (since the group couldn't take any formal action on the document while inquorate), I suppose it doesn't matter much if two versions come back to the next quorate meeting for consideration -- the version in the secretary's notes, and another version with the further revisions that some members apparently think are desirable.

Just let the next quorate meeting sort it out (and form a proper committee if further extensive revision looks desirable).