No quorum, no business conducted. What's the best way to generate minutes?

[Jeancspeck]

My organization' executive board scheduled a meeting, but we did not have a quorum.  We did not call the meeting to order, but did have some informal discussions and catch up from the previous meeting. a) is this legal to do; and b) how do i generate a set of minutes?

[jstackpo]

No meeting, no minutes.  (Next time have your non-meeting gathering in the local bar - might be fun.)

[Tom Coronite]

Even without a quorum, a scheduled or called meeting could have been held. You just wouldn't have been able to do much. There should still be minutes of such a meeting, although they would be very brief, and would not contain discussion content.

Edited April 29, 2018 at 10:49 AM by Tom Coronite

[jstackpo]

Nor should any minutes contain discussion content.

[Josh Martin]

11 hours ago, Jeancspeck said:

My organization' executive board scheduled a meeting, but we did not have a quorum.  We did not call the meeting to order, but did have some informal discussions and catch up from the previous meeting. a) is this legal to do; and b) how do i generate a set of minutes?

For future reference, when a meeting is without a quorum, the meeting should still be called to order. The minutes for such a meeting would be very brief and would look something like this:

”The regular monthly meeting of the L.M. Society was held on Thursday, January 4, 20__, at 8:30 P.M., at the Society's building, the President being in the chair and the Secretary being present.

The meeting adjourned at 10:05 P.M.”

Since it seems that you did not actually hold the meeting, however, there will be no minutes.

Informal discussion outside of a meeting violates no rule in RONR.

[Jeancspeck]

Thanks everyone - hugely helpful as always!

[Guest Student]

9 hours ago, Josh Martin said:

For future reference, when a meeting is without a quorum, the meeting should still be called to order. The minutes for such a meeting would be very brief and would look something like this:

”The regular monthly meeting of the L.M. Society was held on Thursday, January 4, 20__, at 8:30 P.M., at the Society's building, the President being in the chair and the Secretary being present.

The meeting adjourned at 10:05 P.M.”

95 minutes seems like a more than reaonable time to wait to see if a quorum develops

[jstackpo]

Josh is a very patient fellow.

[Josh Martin]

12 hours ago, Guest Student said:

95 minutes seems like a more than reaonable time to wait to see if a quorum develops

I just quoted the beginning and ending of the sample minutes in RONR. This is not intended to be an estimate of how long the meeting would actually last.

[Richard Brown]

2 minutes ago, Josh Martin said:

I just quoted the beginning and ending of the sample minutes in RONR. This is not intended to be an estimate of how long the meeting would actually last.

Thank goodness! I, too, was about to comment on the hour-and-a-half meeting without a quorum! 😉

Your proposed wording for the minutes leads me to a question, though. Wouldn't it be appropriate, or at least permissible, to indicate in the minutes at some point, in some manner, that a quorum was not present? It seems to me it could be in the nature of "The president noted the absence of a quorum" or that "the meeting adjourned at 10:05 PM due to the lack of a quorum". And it should be a meeting lasting 5 to 15 minutes, not one lasting 95 minutes! If the minutes say that the meeting lasted 95 minutes, people are going to wonder what took place during that 95 minutes that has been omitted from the minutes.

[George Mervosh]

95 minutes is too long for any meeting other than a 2FP meeting. 

[Josh Martin]

3 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

Your proposed wording for the minutes leads me to a question, though. Wouldn't it be appropriate, or at least permissible, to indicate in the minutes at some point, in some manner, that a quorum was not present? It seems to me it could be in the nature of "The president noted the absence of a quorum" or that "the meeting adjourned at 10:05 PM due to the lack of a quorum".

I have no objection to including a statement of this nature.

3 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

And it should be a meeting lasting 5 to 15 minutes, not one lasting 95 minutes! If the minutes say that the meeting lasted 95 minutes, people are going to wonder what took place during that 95 minutes that has been omitted from the minutes.

As I said previously, the above is not intended to be an estimate of the length of time the meeting would take.

[Guest KennyO]

my Union is unable to hold our meetings to conduct official business in absence of a quorum due to local state laws during the Covid pandemic.. yet meetings occur and problem has surfaced regarding minutes and promotions.. now what 

 

[Richard Brown]

Guest KennyO, please post your question as a new topic by starting a new thread per the instructions in the pinned post at the beginning of this forum.