Written or 'circular' to notify members of a special meeting

[Drummin]

The content of a constitution is not perfectly clear.

“Notice of every General Meeting shall be given to the members entitled to attend and vote, by a circular specifying the time and place of such meeting and business to be transacted. All notices calling meetings may be sent by post to members”.

Now a Special meeting is called.

There is no mention in the constitution of having to send notification in writing and taking note of the word ‘may be sent by post’. No notification was sent out by post. The members were not written to. Note. The normal practice is that a notice in writing is sent to members with the date, time and agenda for the AGM.

A newsletter was sent by e-mail to members which included in item 2, that “An Extraordinary General Meeting will be held in the clubhouse. Date & time. Plus wording of the Motion”.

Question 1. Does the newsletter qualify as a ‘circular’ or should the member have been written to ?.

Question 2. If we vote on this at the start of the meeting, (as to whether the members were properly notified or not) is the vote

a) A majority vote(procedure was or was not followed)

A 2/3 majority, because the vote is on a constitutional issue (to clear up the understanding as to whether the members must be notified in writing or not)

[David A Foulkes]

Now a Special meeting is called.

Does your constitution or bylaws authorize the calling of Special Meetings? If not, you can't hold them. If so, they should also spell out the notice requirements.

Question 1. Does the newsletter qualify as a ‘circular’ or should the member have been written to ?.

RONR does not address what constitutes a circular.

[Drummin]

The constitution does authorise the calling of a special meeting. The question is around was the calling of it done properly ?

[sMargaret]

It will be up to your members to interpret your own bylaws.

For the circular question, I'd probably interpret that as "a letter or advertisement distributed to a large number of people", which I would think a newsletter would be. As for the whole "may be sent by post", yeesh - really, can't figure that one out.

Your custom has been to send something in writing to members, but just because it's been the custom doesn't mean it's been done properly.

I would suggest that as you're not changing the bylaws, you wouldn't need a 2/3rds vote. Point of order that calling of meeting may not have been done properly, chair rules, possibly appeal the decision of the chair - majority vote called for. Let the members decide.

And then I'd suggest the members get to work rewriting the bylaws...

[sMargaret]

It would also be useful, in the meeting, if they know if all members have an email address in order to receive the newsletter.

[Gary Novosielski]

The constitution does authorise the calling of a special meeting. The question is around was the calling of it done properly ?

If it followed the rules in the constitution then it was done properly. Since those rules are not contained in RONR, we can't tell you what they mean or whether they were followed.