Should nonmembers be allowed in membership meetings?

[handdancer]

We are a dance club and hold quarterly membership meetings. These general membership meetings are held just prior to a dance event. The bylaws do not address who should be allowed to attend meetings. Recently nonmembers have been attending meetings. Also, someone whose membership has been revoked has been attending the meetings. Don't Robert's Rules preclude nonmembers attending membership meetings, even if this is not specifically addressed in the bylaws?

[Trina]

Only members have the right to attend meetings. That is the default rule in RONR, plain and simple -- no need to restate the rule in your bylaws.

If nonmembers are wandering in and sitting down (coming for the dance, but arriving early) in the middle of your meeting, the assembly can (by means of a motion) ask them to leave. Or, if they aren't actually in the room yet, put up a note on the door asking nonmembers to wait outside until the dance starts. Presumably you would like these people to stay for the dance, so be polite when you show them the door, and, if possible, make sure they have some other place to wait (this advice has nothing to do with the rules in RONR ).

[Trina]

RONR (11th ed.) p. 3, top of page, describes the rights of members, which includes the right to attend meetings.

On p. 644. ll. 29-34 you find this:

'... a particular nonmember or group of nonmembers -- can be excluded at any time from part or all of a meeting of a society, or from all of its meetings. Such exclusion can be effected by a ruling of the chair in cases of disorder, or by the adoption of a rule on the subject, or by an appropriate motion as the need arises...'

[Shmuel Gerber]

Only members have the right to attend meetings. That is the default rule in RONR, plain and simple

But RONR doesn't say whether or not nonmembers are generally allowed to attend meetings (other than when in executive session). That's something that each organization determines for itself.

[Rev Ed]

But RONR doesn't say whether or not nonmembers are generally allowed to attend meetings (other than when in executive session). That's something that each organization determines for itself.

Of course, as only members are generally informed of meetings, by default that would imply that only members are entitled to be at the meeting - otherwise notice would be required to be made public.

[Guest Edgar]

. . . otherwise notice would be required to be made public.

The fact that the meetings of a particular organization might customarily be open to non-members in no way suggests that there would be any requirement that non-members be notified or that any notification be public. Conversely, the absence of any such public notification in no way implies that the meetings are necessarily closed to non-members.

[Tim Wynn]

Of course, as only members are generally informed of meetings, by default that would imply that only members are entitled to be at the meeting - otherwise notice would be required to be made public.

That sentence would be better with no words in it.