Advisors

[guest1987]

Is there anything in RONR that talks about roles for honorary advisors. Our CBL's discuss who is appointed as an honorary advisor and we have job descriptions for them, but I am wondering if anywhere it discusses what their role is or guidelines for the role of advisors.

A little more specifically I am wondering if an advisor is allowed to act on behalf of the board when the advisor was not asked specifically to do so?

[BryanSullo]

If, as you say, your bylaws have job descriptions for this position, that fully describes what they are allowed to do. RONR pp. 463-464 grants honorary members or officers only the right to speak. Any other rights would come from their being actual members, or provisions in your bylaws. As far as I can tell, RONR is silent about the position of "advisor", so whatever that position may or may not entail is totally up to your organization.

Edited for clarity.

Added: Note that in order to have any sort of honorary anything, there must be a provision in your bylaws that specifies how one becomes an honorary whatever.

Stay tuned for other (likely wiser) interpretations.

[Josh Martin]

Added: Note that in order to have any sort of honorary anything, there must be a provision in your bylaws that specifies how one becomes an honorary whatever.

Bylaw provisions are required for honorary members or honorary officers, but I don't see why an "honorary adviser" couldn't be created by a lower-level rule. It's possible that it would be necessary or desirable to amend the Bylaws, depending on what authority they grant the advisers, but if all they want is someone who will show up to meetings and give them advice and be called "honorary," that hardly requires a Bylaw amendment.

The rest of your post is quite right. The honorary advisers only have the authority granted by the society's rules, the membership, or the board.