Meetings within Meetings

[Frank Rossa]

What's the proper procedure to hold meetings within meetings?

Background: International organization with many chartered local organizations.  The local organization has several units organized under it.  The international organization specifies particular types of business to be addressed at a unit level meeting and others to be addressed at a general membership meeting of all units.  For example the appeal of an officer's decision voted upon at the unit level can be then be appealed to the general membership meeting of all units.

Details: The organization has quarterly general membership meetings of all local units.  There is no desire to hold additional meetings for each individual unit, and the current practices appear to be inconsistent with the rules of the international organization regarding business to be handled at different levels.  My thought is the general membership should be called to order.  At the point in the agenda of the general membership meeting to address individual unit business the general session should be recessed.  Then in series a meeting should be called to order and adjourned for each individual unit before the general session is called back to order.  Thoughts?

[jstackpo]

That fits the way the NAP did it some years ago.    (Not exactly, of course.)   It was a convention that recessed to allow the Board to meet (same room and all) to take care of a bylaw requirement, the the Board adjourned, and the convention continued.

[Josh Martin]

3 hours ago, Frank Rossa said:

Details: The organization has quarterly general membership meetings of all local units.  There is no desire to hold additional meetings for each individual unit, and the current practices appear to be inconsistent with the rules of the international organization regarding business to be handled at different levels.  My thought is the general membership should be called to order.  At the point in the agenda of the general membership meeting to address individual unit business the general session should be recessed.  Then in series a meeting should be called to order and adjourned for each individual unit before the general session is called back to order.  Thoughts?

I concur that this is the appropriate procedure, although I would add that (assuming that there is little or no overlap in unit membership and the convention has sufficient space to accommodate this), the individual unit meetings could be held simultaneously rather than in series, to save time.

Edited August 28, 2019 at 01:29 PM by Josh Martin

[Guest Zev]

Is not what the OP is asking the same thing as a caucus, as described on pages 605-607?

[Josh Martin]

51 minutes ago, Guest Zev said:

Is not what the OP is asking the same thing as a caucus, as described on pages 605-607?

Yes, I think that what the OP describes may be called a “caucus,” but I don’t think that fact changes the appropriate procedures.