Electronic Documentation

[Guest Steve Ingram]

Good evening. Our association seems to be "stuck in the past". As the new association President I would like to convert our minutes and financial reporting to electronic format. I do not believe there is anything that RONR states that would prevent us from doing this...can anyone confirm? At the moment all meeting minutes are hand written and not circulates to the members prior to the next meeting. Financials are still kept in a ledger book. Time, in my opinion, to embrace the spreadsheet! Thank you

[Guest Steve Ingram]

One additional question... Does a membership need to vote/approve whether or not minutes and financials are distributed to the membership electronically...even if these electronic formats are not considered the "official" documents. Thank you.

[Josh Martin]

8 hours ago, Guest Steve Ingram said:

I do not believe there is anything that RONR states that would prevent us from doing this...can anyone confirm?

Correct.

8 hours ago, Guest Steve Ingram said:

One additional question... Does a membership need to vote/approve whether or not minutes and financials are distributed to the membership electronically...even if these electronic formats are not considered the "official" documents. Thank you.

No, I don't think so. It would seem to the Secretary may distribute the minutes on his own initiative, and indeed it is advantageous to do so. RONR does not specify the manner in which minutes may be distributed, so presumably electronic distribution is permissible (assuming that the Secretary has contact information for all members to distribute them in this manner).

"The chair says, "The Secretary will read the minutes." However, in some organizations where copies of the minutes of each previous meeting as prepared by the secretary are sent to all members in advance, the chair announces that this has been done, and the actual reading of them aloud is omitted unless any member then requests that they be read." RONR (12th ed.) 41:9

I suppose that if the membership disagrees with the manner in which the minutes are distributed, the membership is free to adopt a rule on the subject, but unless and until such a rule is adopted, the Secretary may distribute the minutes as he deems appropriate.