Bylaw by pass

[Guest Jim]

The current bylaws of our club are in need of updatring, but we cannot get the necessary quorum to amend them. What do I need to do as the President to set asside the bylaws and move the business of the club forward?

[Gary c Tesser]

Set them aside? You can't.

(Sorry, David.)

[Chris Harrison]

Do whatever is necessary to get a quorum at a meeting so the bylaws can be amended (you as President don't have the authority under RONR to "set aside" the bylaws).

[Guest Edgar]

What do I need to do as the President to set asside the bylaws and move the business of the club forward?

You don't (because you can't) do anything to set aside the quorum requirement. Instead, you do everything you can (free beer?) to get enough members to show up.

[Chris Harrison]

Three excellent answers inside of 2 minutes.

[Gary c Tesser]

Three excellent answers inside of 2 minutes.

Do we need more cable TV channels or what.

[Chris Harrison]

Do we need more cable TV channels or what.

Yup.

[David A Foulkes]

... we cannot get the necessary quorum .....

Why not? Until you truly understand the why behind your situation (i.e. why members won't/don't attend meetings), you will never know what to do about it. If algebra taught is anything it was that the answer to the problem will be found in the problem.

[Rev Ed]

I concur with David - why are people not attending the meetings? Once you know that, you know how to try and get people out.

If people really want free beer, that works. But it could be because of a lack of interest (in which case a threat to dissolve the organization could be made - hey if people are not interested why bother having an organization), it could be that the meeting could be held on the wrong day of the week (some people don''t want to miss Monday Night Football s0 Mondays are out), travel times (maybe the meeting could be held in a location closer to where people actually live), etc.

[Guest Edgar]

. . . hey if people are not interested why bother having an organization . . .

Let's not confuse interest in the organization with interest in attending meetings. I suspect most members don't join an organization so they can attend meetings and, as one of the regulars here used to say, failure to obtain a quorum on a regular basis may simply mean that most members are satisfied with the status quo.

Of course if you can't at least muster a quorum for an annual meeting where you, at least, elect new officers you may have a problem, but the fact that few want to show up on the third Thursday of each month may not be such a big deal. That's what boards are for.

yhM3mA

[David A Foulkes]

Let's not confuse interest in the organization with interest in attending meetings. I suspect most members don't join an organization so they can attend meetings and, as one of the regulars here used to say, failure to obtain a quorum on a regular basis may simply mean that most members are satisfied with the status quo.

This is a good point, but what all should be aware of is that the "business of the club" must still be attended to, and that may require at least the occasional appearance of a quorum. Otherwise the status quo may not endure.

[Rev Ed]

This is a good point, but what all should be aware of is that the "business of the club" must still be attended to, and that may require at least the occasional appearance of a quorum. Otherwise the status quo may not endure.

That's my point - meetings of the membership are part of being a member - its where you can easily show your appreciation or lack thereof of the Board. The easiest eay to show this is through the election of Board members - re-elect them if you like them, elect someone new if you don't.

[Gary c Tesser]

...you can easily show your appreciation or lack thereof of the Board. .

R. Ed, perhaps the point you're overlooking, which Guest Edgar pointed out in my opinion excellently, is that the appreciation that people join organizations for is immaterial to what they think of the board, if they do at all, and when they do they regret. Perhaps the most significant example that we see on this forum is volunteer fire departments. People join to help put out fires. Not to attend meetings. The time they spend putting out fires is a donation of their time; often they feel that having to attend

meetings is an unjustified imposition on their time.

[David A Foulkes]

Guest_Jim said nothing about a Board.

Jim - RONR offers you no solution. (Attendance at meetings is not mandatory under RONR.) Your bylaws might, but we can only guess what they include and we can't interpret them here.

It might help to be clear on what the negative effects of never having a quorate meeting are, and how they may adversely affect the status quo. Will the Treasurer be unable to pay certain important expenses without membership approval, for example, that might cause "trouble", especially for the absent members? Maybe the pool cleaning company stops coming having gone unpaid.

If you can persuade enough members to attend just once to make a quorum, so that you might be able to amend the bylaws to specifically adjust the quorum requirement to avoid this in the future, with the assurance that these members never have to attend another meeting again, that might do it. Of course, they may think "hey what are you guys up to?" and hold out. Or, they might start showing up to really find out.

At the very least, if they were to understand that there is still the "business of the club" to attend to, and that by the leadership not being able to do so, the status quo that the members perhaps so heartily enjoy will be disturbed, they might become more involved. If not, keep an eye on the Treasurer. When he shows up at the firing range in his Mercedes XR70i-4WD, it might be too late.