President Vacating a Chair

[Guest EE2018]

In regards to the President Vacating the chair during a meeting - page 452:

If the President is vacating the chair for the purpose of presenting awards in a different area of the meeting space, does it require a Vice President to take his chair during the absence, even if he is still in the meeting hall?  The same question if the President moves to the "floor" by the stage for the purpose of accepting donations from the delegation. 

Thank you.  

[Benjamin Geiger]

As I understand it, "in the chair" is not a physical location, but rather a status. If your President is in a position where he can be seen and heard by the members, then he can still be considered "in the chair". 

Individual organizations may have rules or traditions on the matter (Toastmasters, for instance, usually has a tradition where the lectern is never left unattended) but as far as I'm aware RONR doesn't.

[Rob Elsman]

Yes. In any instance when the ordinary presiding officer is distracted from the ongoing proceedings, a temporary occupant should preside.

[George Mervosh]

Is there any other business being conducted while he was doing those things?

[EBWB21]

No, that is the business of the meeting at that time.  The chairman of the committee will approach the lectern to announce award winners, and the President will remain in a staging area to present the award and take photos.  In the process of presenting donations, the donor will announce his/her name and then proceed to the staging area of the President for the purpose of passing the donation on and photos.  

[George Mervosh]

1 minute ago, EBWB21 said:

No, that is the business of the meeting at that time.  The chairman of the committee will approach the lectern to announce award winners, and the President will remain in a staging area to present the award and take photos.  In the process of presenting donations, the donor will announce his/her name and then proceed to the staging area of the President for the purpose of passing the donation on and photos.  

Since no other business is going on and he's fully involved in the proceedings my opinion of it is that I don't see a need for anyone else to take the chair.

[Guest Who's Coming to Dinner]

I agree with Mr. M. Only if some meeting business could come up and the President was not in a position to address it would it be necessary to turn over the chair.

[Gary Novosielski]

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Guest EE2018 said:

In regards to the President Vacating the chair during a meeting - page 452:

If the President is vacating the chair for the purpose of presenting awards in a different area of the meeting space, does it require a Vice President to take his chair during the absence, even if he is still in the meeting hall?  The same question if the President moves to the "floor" by the stage for the purpose of accepting donations from the delegation. 

Thank you.  

Under the conditions described, the President would remain the presiding officer of the meeting.  I had many occasions to present awards and other certificates of recognition during school board meetings.  Typically I would leave the physical chair and go to a microphone closer to the general public.  A member seated nearest to that location would have a copy of the list of recipients and would wrangle the pile of award folders and hand me the proper folder for the next name. This saved considerable time.

On completion of the awards, I would announce from that position that, without objection, the board would be in recess at the call of the chair. This allowed all present to partake of light refreshments supplied by parent organizations and allowed board members to congratulate recipients personally, before resuming the meeting.

 

[Gary Novosielski]

Note that in the message above I accidentally edited and then restored some text in the quote box. Upon saving the post, the odd-looking top-borderless quote box appeared, and the Edit link does not work.  This appears to be a repeatable bug.