Bylaws v. Policies

[Lori Sweet]

Our state level organization (nonprofit) has their yearly conference soon.  At this conference we hold elections, revise bylaws, and do official business.  Along with our bylaws, our state board also has a policy and procedure document they use as a supplemental guide to give more detail of position responsibilities, expectations, etc.  It also includes more detail than the bylaws for removal of office, and other disciplinary info.

 

My questions are:

 

1.  If there is a revision proposed to this policy manual, is it a majority vote or 2/3 vote to change?

 

2.  If there is a policy voted on and put into place by the state board and it directly conflicts the bylaws (and was made retroactive by several months!), what options do the conference attendees have to counteract this?  I am aware of the hierarchy of documents, but how would you address this from the floor? 

 

3.  If a former board member is directly affected by a revised policy, but that policy directly conflicts with the bylaws, isn't that a violation of member rights?

 

Thank you for the assistance!

[jstackpo]

1) Assuming you are amending something previously adopted  --  the P&P Document  --  see p. 305 for the details of doing so.

 

2) Raise a point of order at the next meeting of the group  --  either the Board or the general assembly  --  that actually adopted the conflicting provision.  Or, since a Board is "under" the general membership, just move to rescind the offending provision.

 

3)  Probably, but details matter.

[Lori Sweet]

Thank you!

 

So Point of Order at convention, and if the chair does not want to allow a challenge then we appeal?  Doesn't "appeal" take it directly out of the chair's hands and put it straight to the floor for a delegate vote?

 

Details on #3 are complicated, but this new policy was put in place to purposefully try exclude certain previous members for running for positions.  Political people are challenging.

[Josh Martin]

So Point of Order at convention, and if the chair does not want to allow a challenge then we appeal?  Doesn't "appeal" take it directly out of the chair's hands and put it straight to the floor for a delegate vote?

 

An Appeal does put the question in the hands of the assembly, but it's used when the chair rules on the Point of Order and a member disagrees with his ruling. When a member raises a Point of Order, the chair is supposed to rule the point "well taken," meaning he agrees with the point, or "not well taken," meaning he disagrees and give the reasoning for his ruling. His ruling may be appealed from. An appeal is debatable and requires a majority vote in the negative for adoption, since the question is put as "Shall the decision of the chair be sustained?"

 

Since you ask what to do if "the chair does not want to allow a challenge," this seems to suggest that the chair is not properly responding to the Point of Order. See RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 650-653 for more information.

[Lori Sweet]

Thank you for the clarification on the appeal process.  We have a difficult chair that regularly does not properly respond.  She is hard to work with and has had difficult finding a regular parliamentarian because of this.  Makes it harder to navigate through business, especially when it gets complicated.

[Gary c Tesser]

Please, Southern Princess (-- o my, I thought that was Nancy !! ), get yourself to a bookstore and buy yourself a (your first!) copy of RONR - In Brief.  Read it right there.  On the spot.  Sure, move aside from the cash register, so as not to impede the other customers from buying their copies of RONR - In Brief, but otherwise start to read it NOW.  It'll take maybe an hour -- your feet won't start to hurt until you realize that your feet hurt, so you're already on your second or third reading, standing there in the bookstore. It's that compelling reading .  Perhaps I exaggerate -- more realistically, it's somewhere between "compelling" and "agonizing".  Also, college graduates insist that maybe it takes more than an hour (maybe so, maybe not -- let's maybe you and me let's compile some data at the store about how long it takes various readers, and maybe get a government grant, I can maybe eke a bachelor's degree out of it and you can finally get your doctorate if those apes at your orals will eventually die of old age or starve to death at their desks while you're trying to answer their interminable imbecilic questions).

 

That would be the best way to learn on-the-fly how to deal with adverse rulings from the chair.  (For that matter, I will say that it might be more politic for you to -- (1): give your chair, if she's amenable, a heads-up about what she should actually, herself, properly do, in the first place, so that she won't have to deal with your (or anyone else's, if someone else notices the chair's error) raising a Point of Order -- because, by definition, if the chair doesn't make an error, then no one will have cause to raise a point of order that an error has been made; or, (2),  let her know that if she lets things go wrong, then a Point of Order will be made, calling attention to her error, and requiring that it be rectified.  Most sensible chairs would prefer the first option: that she do it right in the first place, rather than properly handle a correction to her error, which is what a Point of Order and follow-up Appeal, are. Boy, I hope you have a sensible chair there.  Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of them. Best of luck.)

 

[Edited to tinker.]

[Lori Sweet]

Oh Gary - I do have the 11th version of RONR (since they became available) and have spent many hours reading, studying, and learning.  Frankly, I am not really sure how to take your post - whether you are being a dry "New Yorker" or poking.  Nevertheless, I am confirming and obtaining input by those I respect for a very difficult situation.

 

Many thanks to JD and Josh for your input and advice. 

[Edgar Guest]

Frankly, I am not really sure how to take your post . . . 

 

Frankly, none of us are.