When to Install New Officers

[Guest Emily W]

In November, a new board was elected for the non-profit I am part of. It is my understanding that traditionally the new board is sworn the following January, as formal meetings are not held in December. Due to COVID, the group has been holding Zoom meetings and the president suggested to the president-elect, hold a special meeting with the board-elect to organize their first meeting. Once sworn in at the beginning of the January meeting they can then take over the meeting. This continues the tradition. The board-elect decided to swear everyone in at the special meeting and did not wait for January. There were some members who were upset that the tradition was not carried on and were not able to view the swearing in (they expected it to be on Zoom). It was suggested that the by-laws be amended to include at which meeting a new board is sworn in and then this will not be an issue in the future. Now a board member is questioning where in the rules it says they have to do it. I found in the rules it says, "An officer-elect takes possession of his office immediately, unless the rules specify the time. In most societies it is necessary that this time be clearly designated."

My question would be, do most groups have it in their by-laws when new officers/board is sworn in?

[Josh Martin]

3 minutes ago, Guest Emily W said:

In November, a new board was elected for the non-profit I am part of. It is my understanding that traditionally the new board is sworn the following January, as formal meetings are not held in December. Due to COVID, the group has been holding Zoom meetings and the president suggested to the president-elect, hold a special meeting with the board-elect to organize their first meeting. Once sworn in at the beginning of the January meeting they can then take over the meeting. This continues the tradition. The board-elect decided to swear everyone in at the special meeting and did not wait for January. There were some members who were upset that the tradition was not carried on and were not able to view the swearing in (they expected it to be on Zoom). It was suggested that the by-laws be amended to include at which meeting a new board is sworn in and then this will not be an issue in the future. Now a board member is questioning where in the rules it says they have to do it. I found in the rules it says, "An officer-elect takes possession of his office immediately, unless the rules specify the time. In most societies it is necessary that this time be clearly designated."

My question would be, do most groups have it in their by-laws when new officers/board is sworn in?

I would first note that two different things seem to be conflated here: 1) the time at which officers take office and 2) the time at which officers are sworn in.

A swearing-in ceremony is purely ceremonial. Unless the organization's rules provide otherwise, a swearing in ceremony has absolutely nothing to do with when officers take office. The swearing-in ceremony may well occur some time prior to or after the time at which officers take office, although in other cases there is an attempt to have the swearing-in ceremony take place as close to the time at which the officers take office as possible. In my experience, organizations generally do not define in their bylaws when new officers are sworn in and leave this matter to custom. An organization is free to adopt rules on this matter if it wishes, although it must be understood that a rule pertaining to when newly elected officers are sworn in, in and of itself, does not change when they take office.

"If a formal installation ceremony is prescribed, failure to hold it does not affect the time at which the new officers assume office." RONR (12th ed.) 46:47

As you note, RONR provides that officers take office immediately upon the election becoming final, unless the organization's bylaws provide otherwise. I'm not sure what book you are looking at, since the current edition of RONR has slightly different wording than what you have noted.

"An officer-elect takes possession of his office immediately upon his election’s becoming final, unless the bylaws or other rules specify a later time (see 56:27)." RONR (12th ed.) 46:47

Back to your original question, I don't know that I would go so far as to say that "most groups" specify a different time for officers to take office in their bylaws, but certainly it is not uncommon for organizations to do so.