Quorum

[Guest Jill]

We have a 7 member council. We had a special meeting in which 4 were in attendance (1 chair, 3 members), making a quorum. The chair left the meeting, resulting in 3 members. The meeting continued with the 3 members, but no motions or votes were taken. We recessed until the chair arrived to take action. Another one of the 3 members never came back. So now it's just the chair and 2 members. They make motions and vote based on the recommendations that the 3 members previously had in the chair's absence. Is this legal? Because the meeting started with 4 people, and ended with 3, does this constitute as a majority? Or does it still need to be majority of the 7?

[Josh Martin]

1 hour ago, Guest Jill said:

We have a 7 member council. We had a special meeting in which 4 were in attendance (1 chair, 3 members), making a quorum. The chair left the meeting, resulting in 3 members. The meeting continued with the 3 members, but no motions or votes were taken. We recessed until the chair arrived to take action. Another one of the 3 members never came back. So now it's just the chair and 2 members. They make motions and vote based on the recommendations that the 3 members previously had in the chair's absence. Is this legal? Because the meeting started with 4 people, and ended with 3, does this constitute as a majority? Or does it still need to be majority of the 7?

A quorum needs to be present throughout the meeting in order to conduct business. In a seven member council, if the organization's rules are silent on the subject, a quorum is a majority of the council's members, which would be four.

Edited March 12, 2021 at 02:05 AM by Josh Martin

[Richard Brown]

1 hour ago, Josh Martin said:

A quorum needs to be present throughout the meeting in order to conduct business.

I agree with Mr. Martin, but with the caveat. RONR does indeed require that a quorum be present throughout the meeting. However, a few state corporation statutes contain a provision that a Board of Directors of an Incorporated  organization may continue to conduct business not withstanding the fact that enough members have left to cause the loss of a quorum.