motion on agenda

[SHOOTER]

We recently received an agenda for our up coming board meeting. We have two reports that the board is required to vote on.

The normal procedure is to have the report given, after discussion and questions, the chair would ask for a motion, someone would make the motion, it would be seconded and a vote taken.

On this agenda however it goes as such.

1.      Review/Approval of minutes from last meeting:

Motion: Presidents Name            Move:                        Second:                          Vote:

Is this the correct wording? Is there better wording that would not imply the President is making a motion.

[Joshua Katz]

First, what you received, unless laws or your rules say otherwise, is a proposed agenda, not an agenda. It becomes an agenda when (and if) the assembly (in this case, the board) adopts it. As a result, the board is not required to vote on anything,  because the board can amend the agenda before adopting it (or not adopt one at all).

Second, ordinarily, you would not be voting on reports, but rather recommendations contained within reports.

Third, an agenda should not say who will make a motion. It is not a script, nor is the meeting a play. Rather, it should list the item of business that will come up.

Fourth, no motion is needed for the approval of the minutes (happy everyone?). Rather, the Secretary reads the minutes (if necessary), the chair asks for corrections, and once all corrections have been dealt with, by unanimous consent or a majority vote, the chair announces that the minutes stand approved, there being no further corrections.

Fifth, if you are using small  board rules, the chair may make a motion, but no second is required.

Sixth, where a committee, report contains recommendations, the committee chair (or person making the report) should move their adoption, and no second is required (even if not under small board rules) because they are moved on behalf of the committee. There's no need to be overly formal here, though. Where an officer report, by contrast, contains recommendations, someone else should move their adoption, for some reason.

If a report is, for some rare reason, to be adopted in its entirety, I suppose it is appropriate to say that the chair will entertain a motion to that effect. If this is happening routinely, though, your board has gravely misunderstood some aspect of parliamentary procedure, most likely (which is a common enough scenario).

[Guest Who's Coming to Dinner]

4 hours ago, SHOOTER said:

The normal procedure is to have the report given, after discussion and questions, the chair would ask for a motion, someone would make the motion, it would be seconded and a vote taken.

Debate comes after a motion is made, not before.

[SHOOTER]

Thanks Gentlemen