Membership Definition

[Guest K. McFarland]

Hello all,

I am curious about the technical definition of membership as it would regard to a college organization (that has agreed to adopt Roberts Rules as a governing document for parliamentary procedure). The two frames of mind are this:

1) A member is any person(s) belonging to the organization that have voting rights.

2) A member is any person(s) belonging to the organization regardless of voting rights (people of Alumni status). 

any help that can be provided would be greatly appreciated.  

[Hieu H. Huynh]

A member has the right to vote (see RONR 11th ed., p. 3).

[Richard Brown]

Your own bylaws should define who is (and who is eligible to be) a member and whether there are different classes of members with different rights, such as full members and associate members.  A member of an organization, without some limitation being placed in the bylaws, has the right to vote, make motions, attend meetings and debate.  As stated on page 3 of RONR:

"A member of an assembly, in the parliamentary sense, as mentioned above, is a person entitled to full participation in its proceedings, that is, as explained in 3 and 4, the right to attend meetings, to make motions, to speak in debate, and to vote."

If you want to have different classes of members and restrict the rights of some classes, such as the right of associate members to vote, it needs to be set out in the bylaws. Otherwise, a member is a member is a member. . . .

Edited to add:  You might also read the section on Bylaws in RONR regarding a bylaw provision on members on pages 571-572 of RONR.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

45 minutes ago, Guest K. McFarland said:

1) A member is any person(s) belonging to the organization that have voting rights.

2) A member is any person(s) belonging to the organization regardless of voting rights (people of Alumni status).

Look at it this way.

Alumni must be members of the organization; otherwise, there would be no need to explicitly say that alumni cannot vote.

***

What you are describing is CLASSES of membership.

So, yes, (a.) a member can be a party who can vote, and (b.) a member can be a party who cannot vote. -- Depending on your bylaws' definition of each kind of class.

***

But why are you asking your question here in this forum, when your bylaws hold the real answer? The real definition of each class?

 

[Gary c Tesser]

On 9/22/2016 at 0:00 AM, Kim Goldsworthy said:

 ...But why are you asking your question here in this forum, when your bylaws hold the real answer? ...

 

You really don't know?  Kim, c'mon!