AGM Missing Amendment

[kacey]

I have not run into this situation before and wonder if I can get some help. During our recent AGM zoom meeting a council member put forth a motion for an amendment to our 2020 AGM minutes. The member read it out but unfortunately his microphone was not working well and nobody was able to fully understand what he was saying. When he was told he got angry and refused to repeat it. Eventually in order to move the meeting on we voted and his motion was defeated. He originally said he would email his amendment to council before the meeting but he did not and now refuses to send it and has resigned. My question is without knowing the exact wording of his amendment, how do I report this in the minutes?

[Atul Kapur]

Two points,

1 - The minutes should reflect what happened. Describe the situation as best you can.

2 - The chair acted incorrectly. "If a motion is offered in a wording that is not clear or that requires smoothing before it can be recorded in the minutes, it is the duty of the chair to see that the motion is put into suitable form—preserving the content to the satisfaction of the mover—before the question is stated. The chair must never admit a motion that the secretary would have to paraphrase for the record." RONR (12th ed.) 4:18

If the member refused to repeat it, the chair should have refused to "state" the motion (4:15) which is the step required before the assembly can consider the motion.

But to go back to Point One: The minutes describe what happened accurately, not what should have happened.

[Josh Martin]

1 hour ago, kacey said:

I have not run into this situation before and wonder if I can get some help. During our recent AGM zoom meeting a council member put forth a motion for an amendment to our 2020 AGM minutes. The member read it out but unfortunately his microphone was not working well and nobody was able to fully understand what he was saying. When he was told he got angry and refused to repeat it. Eventually in order to move the meeting on we voted and his motion was defeated. He originally said he would email his amendment to council before the meeting but he did not and now refuses to send it and has resigned. My question is without knowing the exact wording of his amendment, how do I report this in the minutes?

Was the situation that the minutes were being presented for approval for the first time, or was the member attempting to correct minutes which had already been approved?

In the former case, a correction of this nature isn't recorded anyway, so there is no need to report anything in the minutes.

In the latter case, I suppose I would write something like "Mr. X made a motion to amend the minutes of the 2020 annual meeting, the exact contents of which were unclear due to audio quality issues. The motion was defeated."

I concur with Dr. Kapur that the chair should not have stated the question on a motion when no one had any idea what it was.

[kacey]

Thank you very much gentlemen for your replies.