Cancelling Meeting

[Guest Christie]

When cancelling a meeting, do I have to use the word cancelled or is there another wording that would be less negative?

[Josh Martin]

1 minute ago, Guest Christie said:

When cancelling a meeting, do I have to use the word cancelled or is there another wording that would be less negative?

What (if anything) do your rules say about canceling meetings and how were these meetings scheduled in the first place?

[Guest Christie]

I can't find anything in our rules about canceling a meeting. The calendar is sent out to the Board for the entire year in December of the prior year. 

 

[Josh Martin]

6 minutes ago, Guest Christie said:

I can't find anything in our rules about canceling a meeting. The calendar is sent out to the Board for the entire year in December of the prior year. 

Okay, but who sets this calendar? The board? If so, the meetings may only be canceled by the board itself, and the board may only take action at a board meeting, unless your rules provide otherwise.

As to calling it something else, “rescheduled” could work, if it is intended to still hold the meeting, but on a different date.

[Gary Novosielski]

4 hours ago, Guest Christie said:

I can't find anything in our rules about canceling a meeting. The calendar is sent out to the Board for the entire year in December of the prior year. 

If your bylaws don't say anything about canceling meetings, it's quite probable that you don't have the authority to cancel one. As Mr. Martin notes, the authority to call meetings presumably carries with it the authority to cancel them.  But if that means the board itself, and there's no meeting in the interim at which to act, canceling becomes a problem.

If there is no way (or no time) to cancel a meeting, one or two members can be assigned to show up at the designated time and place, call a meeting to order and move to adjourn.¹    If it is desired to reschedule rather than simply cancel the meeting, they could adjourn to a future time and place, when and where the adjourned meeting would be held.

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¹ Technically, though, if enough members show up to make a quorum, they can hold the meeting anyway.

[Richard Brown]

Guest Christie,  while l I agree with my colleagues as to the proper procedure regarding cancelling or rescheduling a meeting, as a practical matter, organizations and their presidents cancel and reschedule meetings fairly often regardless of whether they have the authority to do so.

Most organizations are very amiable and understand that there will be situations where the president might think it best to cancel or reschedule a meeting. If  he does not have the authority to do that and a quorum of members shows up anyway, they can go ahead and have the meeting.  

However, as a practical matter, if the president says the meeting has been cancelled or rescheduled,  the membership usually quite willingly goes along with it and it is rarely ever a problem. Just keep in mind, though, that the president probably does not have the authority to cancel the meeting and if enough members show up they can have the meeting despite the fact that the president said it has been canceled.

[Guest Zev]

The OP did not indicate what the nature of this meeting was. Is it a regular meeting whose date is predicted in the bylaws or a still in force motion, or is this a special meeting?

[Josh Martin]

14 hours ago, Gary Novosielski said:

As Mr. Martin notes, the authority to call meetings presumably carries with it the authority to cancel them.

I don’t think that is what I said, or at least it is not what I meant to say. If meetings are scheduled by resolution, then they may be canceled or rescheduled by rescinding or amending that resolution. If a meeting is scheduled by rule, and the rule provides no method for canceling or rescheduling, then the only recourse is to amend the rule. I do not think that RONR provides a clear answer as to how (or if) a meeting scheduled by an individual can be canceled or rescheduled, so I would not make a blanket statement that “the authority to call meetings presumably carries with it the authority to cancel them.” It seems to me that would be a question of bylaws interpretation.

6 hours ago, Guest Zev said:

The OP did not indicate what the nature of this meeting was. Is it a regular meeting whose date is predicted in the bylaws or a still in force motion, or is this a special meeting?

We are told that “The calendar is sent out to the Board for the entire year in December of the prior year,” so it sounds like a regular meeting, but it has not yet been stated how this calendar is set.