Non board members at board meeting... Guidelines on their participation

[Guest Susie]

I am a board member on youth sports team that is a parent run organization. Board meetings can be attended by anyone but lately non board members have been very vocal and opinionated, so we are not able to get through the agenda. What is the best way to handle this?

[Edgar Guest]

When you say "board meetings can be attended by anyone", is that a rule or just a custom? 

 

If it's not a rule, guests can be excluded whenever the board wants. Some or all can be excluded. A majority vote (or unanimous consent) will do the trick. There's certainly no reason to permit non-members to disrupt a meeting. If they can't behave they should be told to leave.

[Gary c Tesser]

Or, more gently:  note that, at a meeting, non-members have no rights.  If they are granted permission to attend, that is all they have been granted permission to do.  They certainly have no right to vote, and, as non-members, never will -- I trust this is obvious and beyond discussion.  But neither do they have any other of the rights of board members at a board meeting:  not to make motions, not to second motions, not to speak.  Certainly not to disrupt.

 

Of course, Guest Susie, I can't tell from your (admirably succinct) post what the non-members were doing that delayed the meeting.  Of course, guest Susie, as Mr Guest advises, you can kick them out.  Or some of them.  Or not let them in, in the first place.  Or some of them.  Or shoot them.  Hopefully, very few of them.

 

Since you ask what's the best way, and since that's a judgement-call, I can offer you my own, perhaps less draconian, opinion.  You can simply make sure that the non-members know that, as a condition of their attendance at the board meeting, they may not impede its proceedings.  I frankly can't think of an exactly pure parliamentary way to do this (and since the subject has come up before, I've been thinking about it for some time).  Common sense (I was looking at p. 456 in RONR, one of my favorites, not only because it's so much fun to type) might suggest a simple statement, by the chairman, at the beginning of the meeting, reminding the guests -- that's the non-members -- of their very limited role at the board meetings.  Oh, it might chafe at first:  but soldier on, young brave valiant Guest Susie:  that's what youth sports team board members were weaned for, back in Sparta, where you all, at least in spirit, were conceived*.

 

But I say it's not a pure parliamentary way, because parliamentary procedure, whose purpose is to provide that meetings be as efficient as possible while being fair to everyone (except non-members, who, remember, have zero rights), does not provide for an out-of-thin-air lecture, even from the chair.  The fact that no board members might object to the speech, perhaps by its having been savvily pre-arranged among them, does not cut it, here on the world's premiere Internet parliamentary forum.

 

But then, life sometimes demands compromise, and sometimes sorrow.  You might look the other way when the chairman gives a gentle lecture that tells the non-board-members that they can only speak when the board grants them permission.  And a crocodile ate my kitten.

___________

* Pun stolen from first page of King Lear

 

[Edited to fix dopily messed-up] italic feature above]

 

O great Steaming Cobnuts, now it works!

Edited December 29, 2014 at 08:42 PM by Gary c Tesser

[George Mervosh]

Gary, how do we know they have no right to attend, since Guest Susie didn't answer Guest Edgar's question in post #2?  IF they have the right to attend, doesn't that affect the procedure for removing them for disruptive behavior?

[Gary c Tesser]

Gary, how do we know they have no right to attend, since Guest Susie didn't answer Guest Edgar's question in post #2?  IF they have the right to attend, doesn't that affect the procedure for removing them for disruptive behavior?

 

O Great Streaming Cobnuts.  Wrong again even when I shouldn't be.

 

Y'know, I think I'm gonna uncharacteristically stand up for myslef here -- the default, which we go with absent a contradicting statement from young brave puissant Guest Susie in her bloodstained cuirass, is the default with which we go.

 

(Ooo, proper English grammar is so challenging, yet liberating.)

 

Gimme a bloody Break, George, my kitten just got eaten.

 

Aren't I gonna win any of these this year, even with Tim Wynn lately not looking?

[Gary c Tesser]

Gary, how do we know they have no right to attend, since Guest Susie didn't answer Guest Edgar's question in post #2?  IF they have the right to attend, doesn't that affect the procedure for removing them for disruptive behavior?

 

OK, the non-members, per a rule, have a right to attend.  How, you commie with legs of steel and thews of iron, ask, can they be ejected when necessary-appropriate.

 

O Great Steaming Cobnuts.

[Gary c Tesser]

Gary, how do we know they have no right to attend, since Guest Susie didn't answer Guest Edgar's question in post #2?  IF they have the right to attend, doesn't that affect the procedure for removing them for disruptive behavior?

 

(Part 15 or so.)  OK:  the rule-derived right to attend almost certainly affects the procedure for removing them from the room (for whatever, or maybe no specified, reason).

 

Please, Guest Susie, I'm dangling on a string here.

[Edgar Guest]

O Great Streaming Cobnuts.

 

O Great Steaming Cobnuts.

 

Please, Guest Susie, I'm dangling on a string here.

 

You might want to take a deep breath.

[Guest Susie]

"The members of the organization have the privilege of voice at all meetings of the membership and in the consideration of all matters of the club."

Members refers to members of the team but not the board.

We also have general membership meetings .

The bylaws do not specify who can attend board meetings .

Thanks for all of the feedback!

[Bruce Lages]

If the bylaws really don't say anything about who can attend board meetings, then the default position spelled out in RONR is that only board members have a right to attend and the board itself, by either unanimous consent or majority vote, can invite any non-member to attend. Non-members of the board invited to attend a board meeting do not automatically get the privilege to speak; they can be granted that right, again by unanimous consent or majority vote, unless this involves speaking in debate on a motion, which would require a 2/3 vote.

 

If a non-member becomes disruptive during the meeting, the board chair, acting on his own, can order the non-member to leave.

[Richard Brown]

I am a board member on youth sports team that is a parent run organization. Board meetings can be attended by anyone but lately non board members have been very vocal and opinionated, so we are not able to get through the agenda. What is the best way to handle this?

 

"The members of the organization have the privilege of voice at all meetings of the membership and in the consideration of all matters of the club."

Members refers to members of the team but not the board.

We also have general membership meetings .

The bylaws do not specify who can attend board meetings .

Thanks for all of the feedback!

I'm getting really confused.  Board members aren't members of the organization?  And the word "members" refers only to team members, even though the opening sentence quoted from the bylaws refers to "members of the organization"?   Are "members of the team" and "members of the organization" the same people?

 

Agreeing with Bruce Lages, I see nothing in the quoted provision that gives members of the organization (or "team members, either, for that matter) the right to attend board meetings, but I'm bothered by the language quoted from the bylaws that gives members voice  "in the consideration of all matters of the club."   What the heck does that mean?  Does that give the members "voice" in board meetings, too?

 

My, my. 

[Andy Travis]

On 2014-12-30 at 9:24 AM, Bruce Lages said:

If the bylaws really don't say anything about who can attend board meetings, then the default position spelled out in RONR is that only board members have a right to attend and the board itself, by either unanimous consent or majority vote, can invite any non-member to attend. Non-members of the board invited to attend a board meeting do not automatically get the privilege to speak; they can be granted that right, again by unanimous consent or majority vote, unless this involves speaking in debate on a motion, which would require a 2/3 vote.

 

If a non-member becomes disruptive during the meeting, the board chair, acting on his own, can order the non-member to leave.

Can you please tell me on what page RONR discusses that only board members have a right to attend board meetings.

Also, does RONR address, and if so on what page, that nonmembers must request to attend and speak at a board meeting. 

 

Thsnk you. 

[jstackpo]

Page 2, line 1ff.

Member means member in an assembly, a deliberative body.  You have to be a member of the body to have the right to attend meetings of the body.  Someone might be a member of the association, but not a member of the board of that association.

page 96, line 21ff.

page 263, footnote

[Dan Honemann]

In addition to the references provided by Dr. Stackpole, you might also wish to look at page 486, lines 19-25, page 644, line 22 to page 645, line 3, and page 648, lines 11-23.