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Determining number members required to call special meeting


katyward

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If total group membership is 13, and a rule says one quarter is enough to call a special meeting, what number is considered to be one quarter? 4 or 5?

 

And if group rules say it takes two thirds of membership to vote an officer out of an executive position, is two thirds of 13 considered to be 8 or 9 members?

 

Thank you.

 

Katyward

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If total group membership is 13, and a rule says one quarter is enough to call a special meeting, what number is considered to be one quarter? 4 or 5?

Divide 13 by 4 and unless you have fractional memberships you would need to round up. 

 

 

And if group rules say it takes two thirds of membership to vote an officer out of an executive position, is two thirds of 13 considered to be 8 or 9 members?

That depends on the exact wording of the rule.  The numbers very well vary depending on if we are talking about 2/3 of the members who voted, or 2/3 of the members present at the meeting, or 2/3 of the entire membership.

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If total group membership is 13, and a rule says one quarter is enough to call a special meeting, what number is considered to be one quarter? 4 or 5?

 

3.25 is 25% of 13.  Thus 4 members would be the requirement.

 

And if group rules say it takes two thirds of membership to vote an officer out of an executive position, is two thirds of 13 considered to be 8 or 9 members?

 

Two-thirds of 13 is 8.6666, so 9 would be two-thirds of 13. 

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If total group membership is 13, and a rule says one quarter is enough to call a special meeting, what number is considered to be one quarter? 4 or 5?

 

And if group rules say it takes two thirds of membership to vote an officer out of an executive position, is two thirds of 13 considered to be 8 or 9 members?

 

Thank you.

 

Katyward

 

Neither 4 nor 5 are one quarter of 13.   In fact, 3.25 is one quarter of 13.     So that's the minimum number required to call a special meeting.  What you do is, see how many people request the special meeting, and compare it to the number 3.25.   No need to round anything up or down.   Obviously 4 would be enough, but 3 would not.

 

Similarly, 2/3 of 13 is 8 2/3.   Count the votes and compare them to that number to see if the motion passed or not.   (This presumes that there were 13 votes actually cast). 

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Neither 4 nor 5 are one quarter of 13.   In fact, 3.25 is one quarter of 13.... No need to round anything up or down.

 

If you are talking about real numbers, that is true, but we can't say that one quarter of 13 people is 3.25 people, because there's no such thing as 0.25 people. Even if a man with no legs or arms comes in, he would be counted as a whole person. I don't see the reason for the hangup with rounding up (taking the ceiling) of the result of the division. Ultimately, it gets to the same answer.

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 . . . we can't say that one quarter of 13 people is 3.25 people . . .

 

We're not. We're saying that, in this instance, at least four members must be present to establish a quorum. That doesn't mean that the quorum requirement has been "rounded up". The quorum requirement remains 3.25. Three members would be insufficient as it is less than that number. So no rounding up. You just make sure that the number of members present meets or exceeds the quorum requirement.

 

One problem with this "rounding" explanation it that it seems to lead some to think you round to the nearest whole number (which in this case, would be three).

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