Waiving a Policy

[Guest Donna Hines]

On a seven member board, how many votes does it take to waive a policy?

[Gary Novosielski]

It depends on your rules, the nature of the policy, whether previous notice is given, how many of the seven are present, and how many of those vote.

[jstackpo]

And you won't find "waive a policy" anywhere in RONR, although suspend the rules comes close in concept.

There are only five instances of "waive" anything and they are quite specific.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

10 hours ago, Guest Donna Hines said:

On a seven member board, how many votes does it take to waive a policy?

You left out too many variables (unknowns).

E.g.:

• Is the policy in the bylaws, or its own stand-alone resolution?

• Did the board do the original adoption, or did the general membership, or did the delegates at your convention?

That kind of thing.

 

[Transpower]

A policy is a standing rule and so can be amended by majority vote with notice; a standing rule can also be suspended by majority vote.
 

[J. J.]

Unless this is in the bylaws, and if it was adopted by the Board in the first place, four votes will be sufficient in all cases.

[Joshua Katz]

I'm still concerned about what it means to waive a policy.  Usually I've seen policies refer to standing rules that have their application outside of meetings, and these are not suspendable.  We also don't have confirmation of where this policy came from.