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special meetings and discipline


Kim Goldsworthy

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[excerpt, RONR, page 92]

Quote

Special meetings can properly be called only

(a) as authorized in the bylaws (see p. 576); or

(b) when authorized by the assembly itself, as part of formal disciplinary procedures, for purposes of conducting a trial and determining a punishment (see footnote, p. 661).

Q. Does the current authorship team stand by letter #b?
Can an assembly call a special meeting despite no bylaws' authorization for special meetings, when the subject of the special meeting would be a disciplinary action?

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Having decided, quite some time ago, that I would no longer participate in the writing of future editions of RONR, I'm no longer a member of the "current" authorship team (although I wouldn't presume to respond in behalf of the entire authorship team even if I were still a member of it, and I very much doubt that a meeting would be held in order to formulate a response to this question :)), but as one of the authors of the current edition of RONR I'll say that, yes, I "stand by" (whatever that means) what RONR now says about the calling of special meetings by the assembly itself, as a part of formal disciplinary procedures, for purposes of conducting a trial and determining a punishment (on pages 92 and 576, and in the footnote on page 661).

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On 6/24/2016 at 6:58 PM, Kim Goldsworthy said:

[excerpt, RONR, page 92]

Q. Does the current authorship team stand by letter #b?
Can an assembly call a special meeting despite no bylaws' authorization for special meetings, when the subject of the special meeting would be a disciplinary action?

The book doesn't simply say that "the subject of the special meeting would be a disciplinary action." It says that the special meeting is being held "for purposes of conducting a trial and determining a punishment."

Since this language was added for the 11th edition, along with footnote on page 661, which explicitly states that "the assembly of a society may call a special meeting for purposes of conducting a trial and determining a punishment, even if the bylaws fail to provide for special meetings or the designation in the bylaws of those who can call special meetings does not include the assembly," it would be somewhat embarrassing if the current authorship team did *not* stand by it without some good reason. Do you have a good reason why you think this rule presents a problem for organizations that have adopted RONR?

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I did not know that the tdibit was actually new to the Eleventh Edition.

I had thought that it had slipped my mind after 25 years. -- Thus my question. -- The tidbit was most unexpected.

***

The fact that
 

Quote

 

(1.) the rule is so specific to two explicit items,

and,

(2.) that it implies that disciplinary things like

   (a.) non-trials;

   (b.) non-determinations of punishment

are not suitable triggers for special meetings;

 

. . . I thought that the resulting Venn diagram would look curious, indeed.

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Observation, and coincidence :

Just this week, I was reading up on Kurt Godel, and Bertrand Russell, and the paradox which ruined those "sufficiently complex systems" with the nasty choice of being

(a.) consistent

(b.) complete

but not both.

***

And I pondered whether Kurt Godel's observation applied to non-mathematical systems.

As the King of Siam said while on Broadway (1951): "It is a puzzlement."

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Clearly not.  The sentential calculus, which is incapable of representing mathematics, is consistent and complete.  So too is any system consisting of the usual rules of inference with the only axiom being some non-self-contradictory sentence.  

The proof is entirely built on the capability of using the formal system to represent addition and multiplication, since the whole "trick" is making the system self-referential through coding.

It so happens that some systems which are seemingly incapable of representing mathematics turn out to run afoul of the conclusion without the proof holding, and Godel was interested in a larger program of determining, in various sorts of systems, whether formal and intuitive approaches coincide, but he only proved the negative for PM and related systems.  He also proved the positive, as I mentioned above, for the sentential calculus.  He also proved many relative consistency results - if A is consistent, then so is A plus a. 

I suspect that you can't have a legal system that is both formal and sensible, for instance, but I don't have a proof of it.  

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10 hours ago, Kim Goldsworthy said:

I did not know that the tdibit was actually new to the Eleventh Edition.

I had thought that it had slipped my mind after 25 years. -- Thus my question. -- The tidbit was most unexpected.

During those 25 years you might have noticed that rules in the ninth and tenth editions of RONR provided (as does the current edition) that, when a trial is to be held before the assembly of the society and there will be another regular meeting between the date of adoption of resolutions preferring charges and the date desired for the trial, the first resolution preferring charges should establish a special meeting for the trial instead of an adjourned meeting, but also provided that special meetings could not properly be called unless authorized by the bylaws. Had you done so, this change which was made in the eleventh edition should not have come as a surprise. 

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Alternatively.

To remove the inconsistency from the 1990 tenth edition, all the authorship team needed to do was to add a parenthetical comment, to the Chapter XX disciplinary section, akin to:

>> ". . . (if special meetings are allowed per the bylaws [9])" . . .

***

And I wonder one more thing.

I still do not see a source from the common parliamentary law that

>> "special meetings may not be called without bylaws authorization unless a trial or punishment are the items of business."

It kind of goes against the principle of interpretation. -- page 598, #3 and #4.

It is a puzzlement.

 

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47 minutes ago, Kim Goldsworthy said:

Alternatively.

To remove the inconsistency from the 1990 tenth edition, all the authorship team needed to do was to add a parenthetical comment, to the Chapter XX disciplinary section, akin to:

>> ". . . (if special meetings are allowed per the bylaws [9])" . . .

***

And I wonder one more thing.

I still do not see a source from the common parliamentary law that

>> "special meetings may not be called without bylaws authorization unless a trial or punishment are the items of business."

It kind of goes against the principle of interpretation. -- page 598, #3 and #4.

It is a puzzlement.

 

In the 10th Edition of RONR and in PL it notes that a special meeting is the preferred meeting for conducting a trial.  As J.J. noted above it might be a "surprise" they can be called for this limited purpose without a bylaw provision that allows them to be called but it's certainly consistent with the fact regular meetings are simply not the spot to conduct the disciplinary process. 

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I'm not sure why it's a surprise that a special meeting can be called for this limited purpose without a bylaw provision allowing for them.  There is, presumably, a bylaw provision adopting RONR, which Mr. Honemann has told us is like plopping RONR into your bylaws, and RONR says that you can hold a special meeting for this purpose.

 

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1 hour ago, Kim Goldsworthy said:

Alternatively.

To remove the inconsistency from the 1990 tenth edition, all the authorship team needed to do was to add a parenthetical comment, to the Chapter XX disciplinary section, akin to:

>> ". . . (if special meetings are allowed per the bylaws [9])" . . .

I'm sorry. I should have said " ... to remove the inconsistency in a reasonable and satisfactory fashion."

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  • 1 month later...
Guest explain please
On ‎6‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 9:19 AM, J. J. said:

I think the "surprise" is the assembly being able to call a special meeting without a bylaw provision permitting it.  It isn't that disciplinary action could or should be handled at a special meeting.  :)

By assembly or members are you saying everyone who has paid their dues to belong to this organization??   If the board or president doesn't have the "guts" to handle a theft by the treasurer  that the members can not call a special meeting because there is no bylaw to handle this situation?

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1 hour ago, Guest explain please said:

By assembly or members are you saying everyone who has paid their dues to belong to this organization??   If the board or president doesn't have the "guts" to handle a theft by the treasurer  that the members can not call a special meeting because there is no bylaw to handle this situation?

Guest explain please: If you have a specific question about the rules for calling a special meeting, please post it in the General Discussion forum.

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