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How can these rules be suspended? (see attached)


TheAdvocate

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Procedures for Gold Medal Selection.pdf(Every year at about this time of year I return to this forum for help and clarification. So here I am again.)


 


Once a year my high school holds a faculty meeting during which—using RRs—we decide which students will receive gold medals and honorable mentions for a variety of categories, such as fine arts or athletic achievement. 


 


We only do this once a year, and we use the attached rules to govern the specific way things are done. As implied by rule 11 (see attached pdf), no student can win more than one gold medal award. But I know that someone is going to make a motion to make it possible for a student to win more than one gold medal (e.g., one for athletics AND Christian conduct). What would it take make that change? Would "suspend the rules" do it? And are these what you call standing rules?


 


I suppose you can say that our annual assembly is what you would call a mass meeting, but then again, mass meetings, as I understand them, are usually meant to start up an organization. We, rather, use the same (attached) rules year after year for decades. In the past we've modified them by 2/3 vote. This time, I think someone wants to just suspend the rules only for this session.


 


In any case, I have a hard time calling it a mass meeting, given that each year we meet a for the same purpose, and for the most part, have used the same rules decade after decade (does this rise to the level of custom?) I spoke briefly to a prominent member of parliamentarian organization today, and she didn't think that mass meeting would be the best way to describe our annual gathering.


 


In any case, my main question is, would "suspend the rules" be applicable here?


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How, or by whom, were the rules adopted in the first place?   (I'll bet they have been there "forever".)

 

Since you apparently have no formal organization, no bylaws, no meetings other than this "award determination" meeting, RONR doesn't really have any application.  However, does the school charter (or something) suggest that there is a "Faculty Association" of some sort?

 

That being said, a 2/3 vote to suspend the particular rule -- NOT suspending all the rules  --  that gets in the way of the double award seems not unreasonable. But if you can find the maker of the rules (and decide he/she/it still has the authority to change them) let him decide.

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Based solely upon what has been posted, it appears that the rules which have been adopted provide that a student who has been awarded a gold medal is ineligible to win another. Such a rule, in my opinion, is not suspendable. It may, however, be amended, which is apparently what you have been doing from time to time by a two-thirds vote.

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Based solely upon what has been posted, it appears that the rules which have been adopted provide that a student who has been awarded a gold medal is ineligible to win another. Such a rule, in my opinion, is not suspendable. It may, however, be amended, which is apparently what you have been doing from time to time by a two-thirds vote.

Thank you for your reply. I just received RROONR in Brief in the mail, and I noticed your name is on the cover, as well as on the 11th edition. I am honored! I am also hopeful that I can understand how to proceed in the matter concerning my post. In order to do so, I have some follow-up questions:

 

  1. The rules that been adopted and that are used by our assembly (consisting of the entire faculty and school administration) have indeed been used for decades. The question is, what do we call these "house" rules of ours? Are they standing rules? By-laws? From what I've read, neither definition seems to fit unless I'm misunderstanding something. I want to give these rules a name so that if anyone questions me I can point out what RR says about amending them.
  2. As far as the origin of the very rules themselves, I believe they were created from "on high" by school administrators decades ago (so almost certainly not created by a deliberative body of the faculty assembled). If we were to amend the rules to allow for a single to student to be the recipient of more that one gold medal, would the school principal be required to come back next year to the annual meeting with the same document, only this time bearing the amendment? Or would it still be his prerogative to revert it back to its original form given that the administration created the rules in the first place, leaving us to "re-amend" it next year if so desired? (I'd like to add here that our school is a private school run by a religious order.)
  3. In truth, I don't believe that even the teachers really want this to be a permanent amendment; it's just that this year we have a rare student who is a terrific athlete, a fine Christian gentleman, and a remarkable leader, and many feel that he ought be merited with three gold medals. But everyone recognizes that this is an anomaly that probably won't occur again for another decade, if that. Would there really be no way to just "amend" it for just this session?
  4. Finally, what do we call our annual gathering anyway? It's the only time that we use RR, but since we conduct the same kind of business year after year, I hesitate to call it a "mass meeting." Basically, we're just a bunch of teachers who decades ago got sick and tired of how long the meetings would last and all the fighting, so we decided to adopt RR to get some order. So we don't have by-laws as such (unless you consider the pdf I attached as by-laws), and no elected officials--the high school principal is always the president and his administrative assistant is the secretary--and this is for all practical purposes approved by passive unanimous consent. So what is such a gathering called? We just hold a big meeting once a year consisting of about 55 people and we adopted RR to keep things quick and organized.

 

Again, I am very grateful to you, and to all who contribute with their answers. (For those of you who haven't seen it, the pdf document containing our rules and procedures in attached in the first post.)

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How, or by whom, were the rules adopted in the first place?   (I'll bet they have been there "forever".)

 

Since you apparently have no formal organization, no bylaws, no meetings other than this "award determination" meeting, RONR doesn't really have any application.  However, does the school charter (or something) suggest that there is a "Faculty Association" of some sort?

 

That being said, a 2/3 vote to suspend the particular rule -- NOT suspending all the rules  --  that gets in the way of the double award seems not unreasonable. But if you can find the maker of the rules (and decide he/she/it still has the authority to change them) let him decide.

Good advice which I think could be helpful. I will approach my high school principal and see if he knows the genesis of the adopted rules (but I doubt even he knows!)

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In truth, I don't believe that even the teachers really want this to be a permanent amendment; it's just that this year we have a rare student who is a terrific athlete, a fine Christian gentleman, and a remarkable leader, and many feel that he ought be merited with three gold medals. But everyone recognizes that this is an anomaly that probably won't occur again for another decade, if that. Would there really be no way to just "amend" it for just this session?

Amend the rule, give the fine Christian gentleman three gold medals, then amend the rule again so that no other fine Christian gentleman can get more than one gold medal. Until you amend the rule again.

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Amend the rule, give the fine Christian gentleman three gold medals, then amend the rule again so that no other fine Christian gentleman can get more than one gold medal. Until you amend the rule again.

Thanks for your reply. I didn't occur to me that the rules could be amended twice in the same meeting. (Any idea what these rules of ours are called? Bylaws? Standing rules?)

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I would add that, in general, if you find yourself frequently suspending or amending/re-amending your rules, it's time to give a hard look at what the rule says, amend it once so that it covers the situations that are likely to arise, and then stick to it.

 

The time to write a rule is before you need it, not in the middle of a controversy that depends on that rule.  If you go the latter route, your colleagues are going to be back here in a few weeks complaining that someone changed the rule, probably for personal reasons to benefit his niece, and how can they remove those bums from office.

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Can anyone answer my questions from post #4 in this thread? I'm recopying them here. (I don't want to be an annoyance, but I really do need them answered.)


 


  1. The rules that been adopted and that are used by our assembly (consisting of the entire faculty and school administration) have indeed been used for decades. The question is, what do we call these "house" rules of ours? Are they standing rules? By-laws? From what I've read, neither definition seems to fit unless I'm misunderstanding something. I want to give these rules a name so that if anyone questions me I can point out what RR says about amending them.
  2. As far as the origin of the very rules themselves, I believe they were created from "on high" by school administrators decades ago (so almost certainly not created by a deliberative body of the faculty assembled). If we were to amend the rules to allow for a single to student to be the recipient of more that one gold medal, would the school principal be required to come back next year to the annual meeting with the same document, only this time bearing the amendment? Or would it still be his prerogative to revert it back to its original form given that the administration created the rules in the first place, leaving us to "re-amend" it next year if so desired? (I'd like to add here that our school is a private school run by a religious order.)
  3. In truth, I don't believe that even the teachers really want this to be a permanent amendment; it's just that this year we have a rare student who is a terrific athlete, a fine Christian gentleman, and a remarkable leader, and many feel that he ought be merited with three gold medals. But everyone recognizes that this is an anomaly that probably won't occur again for another decade, if that. Would there really be no way to just "amend" it for just this session?
  4. Finally, what do we call our annual gathering anyway? It's the only time that we use RR, but since we conduct the same kind of business year after year, I hesitate to call it a "mass meeting." Basically, we're just a bunch of teachers who decades ago got sick and tired of how long the meetings would last and all the fighting, so we decided to adopt RR to get some order. So we don't have by-laws as such (unless you consider the pdf I attached as by-laws), and no elected officials--the high school principal is always the president and his administrative assistant is the secretary--and this is for all practical purposes approved by passive unanimous consent. So what is such a gathering called? We just hold a big meeting once a year consisting of about 55 people and we adopted RR to keep things quick and organized.

 


Again, I am very grateful to you, and to all who contribute with their answers. (For those of you who haven't seen it, the pdf document containing our rules and procedures in attached in the first post.)

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Can anyone answer my questions from post #4 in this thread? I'm recopying them here. (I don't want to be an annoyance, but I really do need them answered.)

 

  • The rules that been adopted and that are used by our assembly (consisting of the entire faculty and school administration) have indeed been used for decades. The question is, what do we call these "house" rules of ours? Are they standing rules? By-laws? From what I've read, neither definition seems to fit unless I'm misunderstanding something. I want to give these rules a name so that if anyone questions me I can point out what RR says about amending them.
  • As far as the origin of the very rules themselves, I believe they were created from "on high" by school administrators decades ago (so almost certainly not created by a deliberative body of the faculty assembled). If we were to amend the rules to allow for a single to student to be the recipient of more that one gold medal, would the school principal be required to come back next year to the annual meeting with the same document, only this time bearing the amendment? Or would it still be his prerogative to revert it back to its original form given that the administration created the rules in the first place, leaving us to "re-amend" it next year if so desired? (I'd like to add here that our school is a private school run by a religious order.)
  • In truth, I don't believe that even the teachers really want this to be a permanent amendment; it's just that this year we have a rare student who is a terrific athlete, a fine Christian gentleman, and a remarkable leader, and many feel that he ought be merited with three gold medals. But everyone recognizes that this is an anomaly that probably won't occur again for another decade, if that. Would there really be no way to just "amend" it for just this session?
  • Finally, what do we call our annual gathering anyway? It's the only time that we use RR, but since we conduct the same kind of business year after year, I hesitate to call it a "mass meeting." Basically, we're just a bunch of teachers who decades ago got sick and tired of how long the meetings would last and all the fighting, so we decided to adopt RR to get some order. So we don't have by-laws as such (unless you consider the pdf I attached as by-laws), and no elected officials--the high school principal is always the president and his administrative assistant is the secretary--and this is for all practical purposes approved by passive unanimous consent. So what is such a gathering called? We just hold a big meeting once a year consisting of about 55 people and we adopted RR to keep things quick and organized.
 

Again, I am very grateful to you, and to all who contribute with their answers. (For those of you who haven't seen it, the pdf document containing our rules and procedures in attached in the first post.)

1.) Most of the attached rules appear to be in the nature of special rules of order, although a few may be in the nature of standing rules.

2.) If I understand the facts correctly (and I am not at all certain that I do, so please correct me if I am wrong), these rules were proposed by the school administration, but were ultimately adopted by the assembly, and these rules were adopted to have continuing effect (that is, they were not adopted only for a single meeting, to be readopted every year). If this is correct, then any amendments the assembly adopts will continue to be a part of the rules in future years.

3.) As previously noted, the rule could be amended, and then amended right back. Another possibility would be to amend the rule to include a provision for its suspension (perhaps by a 2/3 vote). This would then allow the rule to be suspended this year, and also to be suspended in the future, as needed.

4.) I concur that it may not be appropriate to call it a mass meeting, since the assembly has a consistent membership, regular meetings, a permanent existence, and a consistent set of rules. I would be inclined to view it as a committee, since it is a creation of and is responsible to a higher authority (the school) and its business is limited to a single function (the selection of the gold medal recipients).

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Excellent response. Thank you so very much. My subsequent questions relating to this hopefully won't be so long and drawn out.

 

Wait, I just thought of one. The teacher that wants to make the amendment must provide previous notice of his intent to amend, am I correct? Is he therefore responsible to do the notifying, or is the president (namely, our principal) the one to do that. I ask this in part because I know the principal hates amending these rules.

 

But even with previous notice, it would still be 2/3, right?

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IF the specific rule that you're amending is in the nature of a standing rule, rather than a special rule of order, then no, it is not necessary to provide previous notice for a proposed amendment. However, doing so will reduce the voting threshold required to adopt the amendment from 2/3 (without previous notice) to a majority (with previous notice).

 

I haven't read through your attachment, so I'm not absolutely certain whether we're talking about a standing rule or a special rule of order - if it is, in fact, the latter, then it will require previous notice and a 2/3 vote for amendment, unless you can muster an affirmative vote of a majority of the entire membership - then no notice is necessary.

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IF the specific rule that you're amending is in the nature of a standing rule, rather than a special rule of order, then no, it is not necessary to provide previous notice for a proposed amendment. However, doing so will reduce the voting threshold required to adopt the amendment from 2/3 (without previous notice) to a majority (with previous notice).

 

I haven't read through your attachment, so I'm not absolutely certain whether we're talking about a standing rule or a special rule of order - if it is, in fact, the latter, then it will require previous notice and a 2/3 vote for amendment, unless you can muster an affirmative vote of a majority of the entire membership - then no notice is necessary.

In the attachment, it's rule #11 that someone wants to amend.

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In the attachment, it's rule #11 that someone wants to amend.

 

This appears to be in the nature of a special rule of order.

 

Previous notice can also be provided at a previous meeting by the teacher who wants to make the motion to amend. No postage required.

 

That's not an option in this case, since the assembly meets only once a year. Previous notice may be given at the previous meeting only if the next meeting is within a quarterly interval.

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