Ad Hoc Committee

[Guest William C.]

Hi, I am the president of my organization and want to implement an Ad Hoc Committee. What is the appropriate process for a medium size organization.

[Richard Brown]

Guest, more information would be helpful.  An ad hoc committee is a special committee.  Depending on your bylaws, it could be created by the membership by way of a motion, by your board by way of a motion, or possibly even by the president acting alone.  What, if anything, do your bylaws  say about the creation of special  committees?

[Guest William C.]

Thanks for the response. Our organization bylaws has nothing in it regarding special committees or the creation of one. Our organization has only one special committee; and at that time, it was created by the "then" president.

[Richard Brown]

If your bylaws are truly silent as to the creation of special committees, then they must be created by a motion adopted by the assembly.  If you have a board, it might be possible for the board to create a committee.  That depends on the powers granted to your board in your bylaws.

To create a special (or ad hoc) committee, someone simply makes a motion to do so.  It requires a second, is debatable and amendable and requires a majority vote for passage.   Ideally, the motion should specify the purpose of the committee, how many members shall be on the committee and how the members shall be selected.  The most common methods are elected by the assembly, selected by the president, or nominated by the president subject to approval of the assembly.  The members can also be named in the motion.  The motion should  also specify how the chairman shall be selected.  He (or she) can be named in the motion, can be appointed  by the president, or elected by the committee.  If any of those details are not included in the original motion, they should be decided on immediately after the creation of the committee.  It's best for the person who will be making the motion, even if it is at the pre-arranged request of the president, to be well thought in advance and to include those details.  Doing it on the fly causes confusion, unnecessary delays, and usually lack of details which must be cleared up later.

See pages 492-499 of RONR for details on creating and naming the members of committees.

[Guest William C.]

This is excellent information to have. I do have a Roberts Rule, but being a beginner, I can not read it succinctly. I will have someone bring this to the executive committee in the form of a complete motion (to include the information you just shared). I think that would be the most appropriate way of managing this special committee. Thank you for your information.

[jstackpo]

In case it wasn't emphasized in the earlier responses, a "special committee" is established to take care of one or more specific tasks - when they are done and the committee reports back, the committee ceases to exist.  Approving an annual meeting minutes could be an example.

If you had something more permanent in mind -- a "ways and means" committee, say, that had a continuing job related to raising funds with no end in sight -- that would be a "Standing Committee", which exists until it is formally disbanded by a motion of some sort.

See page 489ff. for more details (LOTS of them!).  Don't worry about "committee of the whole".

Also, out of curiosity, what is that "one committee" you spoke of in your second posting?