Request to be excuesed from duty

[Guest Shaa]

What is meant by, "A request to be escused from duty essential to the funtioning of a society or assembly is a question of privilage affecting the organization as the assembly; and so also is the filling of a vacancy created by the acceptance of a resignation. In such cases, the assembly can proceed immediately to fill the vacancy, unless otice is required or other provision for filling vacancies is mad in the bylaws.

Does the above refer to non-elected positions and the description below refer to elected positions or is there some other clarification of the two?

"In the case of a resignation from office, unless the bylaws provide otherwise, the assembly cannot proceed to fill the vacancy immediately since notice is a requirement."

[Tim Wynn]

What is meant by, "A request to be escused from duty essential to the funtioning of a society or assembly is a question of privilage affecting the organization as the assembly; and so also is the filling of a vacancy created by the acceptance of a resignation. In such cases, the assembly can proceed immediately to fill the vacancy, unless otice is required or other provision for filling vacancies is mad in the bylaws.

Does the above refer to non-elected positions and the description below refer to elected positions or is there some other clarification of the two?

"In the case of a resignation from office, unless the bylaws provide otherwise, the assembly cannot proceed to fill the vacancy immediately since notice is a requirement."

I would think that once you determine whether or not the resignation is "from office," the application of the quoted rules should be clear.

[Chris Harrison]

At a minimum I think that the resignation of the presiding officer or Secretary would fall under the first passage because RONR p. 22 defines them both as "essential officers for the conduct of business in a deliberative assembly." However, unless the bylaws say otherwise the Vice President (or Vice Chair or whatever title the bylaws give the "back up" presiding officer) automatically becomes the presiding officer as soon as the resignation is accepted and the vacancy would be in the Vice office. With the Secretary unless the bylaws say otherwise the vacancy would be filled at the next meeting after previous notice has been given and in the meantime a Secretary pro tem would be elected. As for any other duties "essential to the functioning of a society or assembly" I would think that it would probably vary from organization to organization but stay tuned for other thoughts.

As for the second passage previous notice is required (unless the bylaws say otherwise) so the members who weren't at the meeting when the resignation was accepted know that someone will be elected to complete the term of office and they would have the opportunity to attend and weigh in on who they want elected. The only time when previous notice isn't required by default is with the presiding officer because the vice presiding officer automatically becomes presiding officer though there is then a vacancy in the vice presiding officer's office which would need to be filled. See RONR p. 575 ll. 6-17.

[Josh Martin]

What is meant by, "A request to be escused from duty essential to the funtioning of a society or assembly is a question of privilage affecting the organization as the assembly; and so also is the filling of a vacancy created by the acceptance of a resignation. In such cases, the assembly can proceed immediately to fill the vacancy, unless otice is required or other provision for filling vacancies is mad in the bylaws.

Does the above refer to non-elected positions and the description below refer to elected positions or is there some other clarification of the two?

"In the case of a resignation from office, unless the bylaws provide otherwise, the assembly cannot proceed to fill the vacancy immediately since notice is a requirement."

I concur with Mr. Harrison that (unless the organization's rules or the circumstances provide otherwise), the first paragraph applies only to the presiding officer and the secretary, and even then, only to the extent that the assembly may elect a Chairman Pro Tempore or Secretary Pro Tempore. I could see this applying to other positions in certain assemblies, especially in the context of a large convention. In a convention of hundreds, it could be an issue if you lose your parliamentarian or the person running the microphones, or whatever.

The second paragraph applies to officer positions except those described in the first paragraph - including the permanent officers who serve in those capacities. This would apply to, for instance, the President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and (other) members of the Board of Directors. Your Bylaws might define other officers.

Other positions which are not defined as officer positions aren't really covered by either of the above. The restriction in the second paragraph doesn't apply, so the society isn't required to provide notice. On the other hand, since it isn't a question of privilege it cannot interrupt the pending business. Thus, to fill the vacancy I believe you'd need to wait until the pending business is concluded (and until New Business, if it had not already been reached) to fill the vacancy, but you could still do it at the same meeting. Members of committees fall into this third category, and there may be other positions, but you'll need to check your Bylaws to be sure. If you have positions like "Webmaster," or "Newsletter Editor," or the like, these may or may not be defined as officers, depending on your rules.

Whether they're appointed or elected doesn't necessarily make a difference for the purpose of these rules, although it would probably make a difference in how the resulting vacancy would be filled.

[J. J.]

What is meant by, "A request to be escused from duty essential to the funtioning of a society or assembly is a question of privilage affecting the organization as the assembly; and so also is the filling of a vacancy created by the acceptance of a resignation. In such cases, the assembly can proceed immediately to fill the vacancy, unless otice is required or other provision for filling vacancies is mad in the bylaws.

I thing the duty would be one assigned by the bylaws/rules, e.g. "Each member shall serve on a committee," or "Each member shall write an article for the magazine at least once a year."

[Josh Martin]

I thing the duty would be one assigned by the bylaws/rules, e.g. "Each member shall serve on a committee," or "Each member shall write an article for the magazine at least once a year."

I'm not clear how this is relevant to the rule the original poster has cited. In either of these cases, it doesn't seem to me that the duty would be essential to the functioning of the society, nor would a vacancy be created by accepting a request to be excused from the duty.