Guest Tori Goodwin Posted February 10, 2017 at 04:08 AM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 04:08 AM Our neighborhood association has a standing committee for By-laws. The Bylaws committee currently revised our bylaws and voted to bring the revised bylaws before the General Membership for vote at our next meeting. There were 4 out of the 12 people on the committee that voted against taking these new revised bylaws to the General Membership. These 4 people got together and created their own revised bylaws document (without telling anyone) that they would like to present side by side with the document the committee approved. What do Robert's Rules of Order say about how this should be handled? Do these 4 have the right to create a bylaws document of their own to put up against the one the committee agreed upon? As Chair how do I handle this correctly? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Goldsworthy Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:43 AM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:43 AM Follow the procedure (the method of amendment) per your bylaws. • If your bylaws allow for X, then allow X. • If your bylaws do not allow for X, then rule X "out of order." *** Q. What is your method of amendment? Q. Why can't the four members submit a bylaws amendment? What rule prevents them from doing exactly that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Honemann Posted February 10, 2017 at 10:43 AM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 10:43 AM 6 hours ago, Guest Tori Goodwin said: Our neighborhood association has a standing committee for By-laws. The Bylaws committee currently revised our bylaws and voted to bring the revised bylaws before the General Membership for vote at our next meeting. There were 4 out of the 12 people on the committee that voted against taking these new revised bylaws to the General Membership. These 4 people got together and created their own revised bylaws document (without telling anyone) that they would like to present side by side with the document the committee approved. What do Robert's Rules of Order say about how this should be handled? Do these 4 have the right to create a bylaws document of their own to put up against the one the committee agreed upon? As Chair how do I handle this correctly? Your questions are fully answered in RONR (11th ed.) on pages 527-529, and if you will be presiding at the meeting at which your bylaws committee will be presenting its report, you should read these pages carefully. The 4 members who wish to submit their own report should do so as well. The presentation of a "minority report" is a privilege that the assembly may accord, not a matter of right. "In such a case, the member presenting the committee report can properly notify the assembly that the minority wishes to submit its views in a separate report. As soon as the chair has stated the appropriate question on the committee report, he should call for the minority presentation unless someone objects, in which case he should put the question on the report's being received. A majority vote is required to receive a minority report; the question is undebatable." (RONR, 11th ed., p. 528, l. 31 to p. 529, l. 2) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tori Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:21 PM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:21 PM Daniel is there any other reference to this section that might be applicable to a different version? Your page numbers don't match up to my edition...Chapter, Section and Paragraph might help? Please Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tori Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:29 PM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:29 PM Also, this minority document was never presented to the Bylaws Committee in any form. It was asked to be put on the agenda suddenly without any prior knowledge of this minority document being developed or created. So is it truly a minority document/report if it was not brought to the bylaws committee before it is to be presented to the General Membership?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Honemann Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:47 PM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:47 PM 25 minutes ago, Guest Tori said: Daniel is there any other reference to this section that might be applicable to a different version? Your page numbers don't match up to my edition...Chapter, Section and Paragraph might help? Please So what edition are you looking at if not the Eleventh, and why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Honemann Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:52 PM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 07:52 PM 18 minutes ago, Guest Tori said: Also, this minority document was never presented to the Bylaws Committee in any form. It was asked to be put on the agenda suddenly without any prior knowledge of this minority document being developed or created. So is it truly a minority document/report if it was not brought to the bylaws committee before it is to be presented to the General Membership?? I don't think that any of this really matters. There is no requirement that a minority report be presented to the full committee before being presented to the general membership. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tori Posted February 10, 2017 at 08:10 PM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 08:10 PM Ok, this is helpful. Very helpful. We are just a small neighborhood association and have run smoothly for years under just our bylaws - the city asked us to update our bylaws from 2004, and a few residents are not happy about it. The majority feel it is a good idea to update our bylaws. Being we have not had issues in the past our edition of RR is not most current and is the 9th edition..yes, we need to purchase the newest one but I am trying to get organized now for our meeting on Thursday and in the meantime am working with the 9th edition... We have always handled things neighborly and now entering this realm of discord we are having to refer to RR in order to obtain order to our meetings; it is unfortunate. So I would really like the actual language from the page numbers you cited but because I am working with an older copy I was hoping to get the Chapter/Section.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Honemann Posted February 10, 2017 at 08:24 PM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 08:24 PM Look at pages 519-521. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tori Posted February 10, 2017 at 11:48 PM Report Share Posted February 10, 2017 at 11:48 PM This has been a huge help. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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