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Explanation to members of removal


Guest Carri

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How do I announce at our meeting tonight that two members (our clubs) were voted off the board last week....it was insinuated that it may not take effect until fall but after reviewing the recording of the meeting it was found there was no provision to date. A motion was requested to vote them off, seconded, and voted for unanimously.

They will appear because they thought it was for fall but it clearly is immediate.

Help? Point of order at roll call?

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Does it matter if they were not clear?

Our by laws allow it because they willing wanted to leave, they voted for it themselves.

It ought to matter to your chair, as it is the chair's responsibility to ensure that people know what they're voting for.

Would people have still voted for it if they knew that they were being immediately removed? Did it actually affect the vote?

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That is unknown.

It would have mattered to two members but not the members that were actually voted off.

The one it matters to is the one that requested the motion....he is the one that pressed for the vote.

Now he wants to backtrack.

But isn't it too late?

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After the vote was taken, off the record, the member that brought the motion to vote said it was for the fall. We all felt it was immediate when we voted.

It was not stated other than a 'vote to remove the clubs from our board' and we all voted yes.

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Another point - clubs don't sit on boards, people sit on boards.

You'll need to check the written rules that got you from "two soccer clubs who you have an agreement with", to "two members from our board". What are the process for how you got those two people, presumably representing those two clubs, on your board? And what are the rules near there, that would discuss how to remove people from this board?

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Each of these two 'members' is a rep of their 'club'.

They are forced to sit on our board because of our agreements with them.

The vote was to amend the agreement, and eliminate them from the board.

We, logically, thought it was immediate.

No one stated differently until after the vote.

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How do I announce at our meeting tonight that two members (our clubs) were voted off the board last week....it was insinuated that it may not take effect until fall but after reviewing the recording of the meeting it was found there was no provision to date. A motion was requested to vote them off, seconded, and voted for unanimously.

They will appear because they thought it was for fall but it clearly is immediate.

Help? Point of order at roll call?

We've gotten off topic on a lot of issues such as whether the board has the authority to do this or whether the members were validly serving to begin with. While these could be important issues, I figured we should get back to the original question.

To answer the original question, the motion would take effect immediately unless the motion or your rules provide otherwise.

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This is one of these issues in which I suspect the devil is in the details.

"The member freaked out, tried to [revote], threatened to remove me from board, then adjourned the meeting to have our organization seek legal advice." - Is this the member who originally brought the motion? The members who were removed from the board? Is this person also the chair? Who adjourned the meeting? Why is there all this concern over the issue?

Carri had posted that the two representatives are on the board because of agreements with them, agreements that expire March 31st. If they expire March 31st, and they're not going to be renewed, why the rush to remove them now?

An option is to submit the question to the organization - "when the chair is in doubt as to how to rule on an important point, he can submit it to the assembly for decision....". Or the chair rule that the representatives cannot be seated as they're no longer representing member organizations, someone makes a point of order, and then an appeal is made by why the membership makes the decision.

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Another option may be a motion to reconsider, or to amend a motion already adopted - this time, specify when it takes affect. Again, this may be useful to get this final decision made by the assembly itself, given that there appears to have been some confusion over what was being adopted.

Not sure if the the motion was properly stated before the vote? May save some time - and possibly legal expenses - just to do it again, crossing the t's and dotting the i's this time.

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How do you do a motion to reconsider when two members are technically not on the board and unable to vote?

You do have other members there who can vote, right?

The idea here is to just get it done correctly, not to necessarily change the end results, but to ensure that thing are done properly, and most importantly, that things are perceived to have been done properly.

Reconsider the motion, amend it to state when it takes affect so that no one can complain and threaten lawyers about that, and then vote to remove them from the board again.

From another post about reconsider:

The fundamental difference between the motion to Rescind and the motion to Reconsider is that a motion to Rescind is a motion to undo a motion. Rescinding a motion causes it to no longer be in force. The motion to Reconsider, by contrast, is a motion to undo a vote. Reconsidering a vote causes a motion to become pending again, as if that vote had never happened.

From this, we can see where the other differences originate. Rescind requires notice or a higher voting threshold for adoption because it is a final motion, but Reconsider does not permanently undo any decision, since the motion becomes pending again and still needs to be voted on again. Reconsider is only permitted shortly after the adoption of the motion to be reconsidered, since it puts the motion into limbo. Reconsider also allows for a lot more options, since during the reconsideration, the motion can be amended, postponed, or sent to a committee. As a result, it's very appropriate for fixing an error in a motion, and usually is a "Oops, on second thought" right after the adoption of a motion.

Of course, other members of this forum may pop up with better ideas - I just like the idea of making sure things are seen to have been done properly. We are still missing quite a lot of information about the actual situation, however, which may change my opinion.

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The member freaked out, tried to remote, threatened to remove me from board, then adjourned the meeting to have our organization seek legal advice.

He realizes the vote was wrongly stated but is arguing the 'intent' was known.

Thoughts?

The way the motion was stated by the chair when it was put to a vote is the official wording. That trumps the "intent," whether it is known or not.

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The way the motion was stated by the chair when it was put to a vote is the official wording. That trumps the "intent," whether it is known or not.

This is correct. Regardless of what anyone intended, the wording of the motion as stated by the chair immediately before the vote is the official wording. And absent any

Since it seems that the member was so good as to adjourn the meeting, you should explain that it is your duty as chair is to enforce the rules of the meeting. Now, of course, it is also your duty to be helpful where you can, and to help this member bring about a motion to accomplish his desired outcome, but the rules are rules and they need to be followed.

So the situation now is that the board has adopted a motion that at least one member did not intend to adopt. It's an unfortunate circumstance, and now you should look into whether or not it is possible for the member to Rescind the motion. Since it seems like there is complex stuff in here, it's very difficult to say without knowing the specifics whether or not that is a motion that is in order. If he cannot, then he could still offer a motion adopting a special rule of order to allow them to participate as members except for voting until fall. While you cannot give them the right to vote, you can accord them every other privilege of membership.

Ultimately, though, the blame rests on the member, who failed to be clear when making his motion. It is wording that is adopted by a body, not intent.

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Each of these two 'members' is a rep of their 'club'.

They are forced to sit on our board because of our agreements with them.

The vote was to amend the agreement, and eliminate them from the board.

We, logically, thought it was immediate.

No one stated differently until after the vote.

Well, I'm no lawyer but, depending on the terms of the agreement, it might well be that a change isn't complete unless/until the other party to the agreement, well... agrees. That's the nature of an agreement. But agreements sometimes contain language that permit unilateral termination.

In any case, it's starting to look less and less like a question about parliamentary procedure.

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