Implementation of an Executive Council Decision

[Guest Looking for Clarity]

Our organization simply has a General Membership and an Executive Council in addition to various committees defined in our bylaws that generally serve to organize events. Our bylaws state that the Executive Council "shall make decisions about the organization for the good of the organization" and also that our bylaws may be amended by a 2/3 vote provided notice is given in advance.

 

Bylaws also state "The Executive Council shall consist of the President(s), Vice-President(s), and Past President(s), the latter of which if they remain active and in good standing with the organization".

 

The Executive Council recently passed a vote to add the Treasurer(s) as voting members of the Executive Council. It is my understanding that this now requires an amendment to our bylaws and would therefore need to be presented to the General Membership for a vote to make it an official change.

 

The General Membership has not yet convened to vote on this amendment, meaning bylaws could not yet have been officially changed to reflect adding Treasurers to the Executive Council. Is it appropriate or reasonable for the Treasurers to already begin to function as a full voting members of the Executive Council despite there not yet being a General Membership vote to amend the bylaws?

[Edgar Guest]

The Executive Council recently passed a vote to add the Treasurer(s) as voting members of the Executive Council.

No. What the Council did was adopt a motion to recommend amending the bylaws to add the Treasurer to the Council.

 

Is it appropriate or reasonable for the Treasurers to already begin to function as a full voting members of the Executive Council despite there not yet being a General Membership vote to amend the bylaws?

 

No.

 

And, since I think you've already posted several topics (under different names), I would suggest you become a member of this humble discussion forum. No salesman will call and, though there are no welcoming gifts, there are some (subtle) advantages.

[Guest Looking for Clarity]

No. What the Council did was adopt a motion to recommend amending the bylaws to add the Treasurer to the Council.

 

 

No.

 

And, since I think you've already posted several topics (under different names), I would suggest you become a member of this humble discussion forum. No salesman will call and, though there are no welcoming gifts, there are some (subtle) advantages.

Thank you for your input! I did not anticipate having so many questions, but looking into membership is a good idea. Thanks for the tip.

[Richard Brown]

Thank you for your input! I did not anticipate having so many questions, but looking into membership is a good idea. Thanks for the tip.

Joining this forum is amazingly easy.  All you do it click on the green "Become a member" link in the upper right corner of the forums page and then make up a user name and password and provide an email address.  We don't even ask you for your real name, although many of us do appreciate it when members use their real names.  You surely don't have to, though.

 

Being a member does have distinct advantages, primarily not having to put together those fool captchas every time you post and the ability to edit posts.  And a much simpler method of checking to see if there have been any new posts added to your thread (topic).

 

Back to your original post.  I have concerns about a couple of provisions from your bylaws that you made reference to:

 

 . . . Our bylaws state that the Executive Council "shall make decisions about the organization for the good of the organization" and also that our bylaws may be amended by a 2/3 vote provided notice is given in advance.

 

Bylaws also state "The Executive Council shall consist of the President(s), Vice-President(s), and Past President(s), the latter of which if they remain active and in good standing with the organization".

The provision about the power of the executive council seems somewhat loosely worded and could prove problematic.  You might consider the wording more along the lines of the language in the sample bylaws in RONR on pages 576-578 and 586-587.

 

The provision on the makeup of the executive council seems especially problematic.  First, how many presidents do you have at one time?   Please don't say you have "co-presidents". . . .

 

The most problematic of all is the provision on past presidents.  For example, what does "active and in good standing with the organization" mean???    How do you determine exactly who and how many there are?   Most regulars on this forum would probably advise against your quoted provision and would even advise against having any past presidents serve automatically.  Even though it's quite common, we see lots of problems with those provisions.  Just ask if you want us to elaborate on that point.