Installing Officer

[Guest Dee]

Can an Installing Officer install themselves using a proxy? 

[Gary Novosielski]

RONR does not mention Installing Officers, and prohibits proxies to the maximum extent allowed by law.

So if the rules in RONR apply, I'd have to say No.

Your rules may have some provisions that would allow it, and if so, that answer could change.  Perhaps you could describe the situation more fully which might fit some analogous situation in RONR.

[Weldon Merritt]

2 hours ago, Gary Novosielski said:

RONR does not mention Installing Officers, and prohibits proxies to the maximum extent allowed by law.

Clearly, RONR prohibits proxies for voting, unless authorized by some superior provision. I am not so sure that the prohibition would extend to a proxy in the sense that Guest Dee is using the term: someone to stand in for the installing officer as he or she installs the officers of an organization in which the installing officer also is one of the officers being installed.

But I agree that RONR does not mention installing officers. So far as RONR is concerned, how, or even whether, the officers are "installed" has no bearing on the legitimacy of their assumption of office.

 

Edited April 20, 2021 at 10:42 PM by Weldon Merritt
Edited to correct a typo.

[Rob Elsman]

Cleary 😆, I agree with the others.  Unless the winner declines his election, he is assumed to have accepted it.  And, assuming the governing documents of the society do not conflict, the person begins his term when the presiding officer has announced the result of the vote.

[Weldon Merritt]

15 minutes ago, Rob Elsman said:

Cleary 😆

Oops! My bad. I have corrected the typo in the meantime, but I like your sense of humor.

[Richard Brown]

Well, the way I read the responses above, Mr. Novosielski and Mr. Merritt did not say the same thing, with Mr. Novosielski seeming to say it is not  permitted at all and Mr. Merritt seeming to say that he is not aware of a rule which would prohibit it.  So, I don't quite understand in what way Mr. Elsman "agrees with the others".

I tend to agree mostly with Mr. Merritt, although all three of my colleagues above make valid and correct points.  Depending on the rules of the organization, the installation ceremony may well be required.  Their bylaws could well say that newly elected officers take office "upon being installed" or "at the conclusion of the installation ceremony".  The bylaws may well prescribe who shall conduct the installation.

Regardless, it seems to me that the the officer conducting the installation ceremony, such as the president who has been elected to a second term, may install himself or may have someone else.... anyone else not prohibited by the rules... "install him" into his new office.  It is quite common in some bodies, particularly elected bodies such as city councils, for each person being "installed" or taking the oath of office to be administered the oath of office by a qualified person of his choosing.

I don't see a problem with it either way unless the bylaws are extremely specific about both the necessity of an installation ceremony AND the person who shall conduct it.