Side Meeting Allowed?

[Deb Parm]

We have a board consisting of members of two countries. The members of one of the countries decided to hold a meeting regarding fund-raising but did not include the International President or the Chair of the Philanthropy Committee or any of the members of that committee. Is this allowable?

A similar situation occurred last year, but was not known until recently. We just want to clarify what is and is not allowed in our next Policy update.

[Joshua Katz]

I have no idea, the answer would probably depend on your bylaws and it's not something we can look at an excerpt and answer. But I can give a general note: for RONR purposes, a meeting means business can be conducted. Were they conducting business on behalf of the organization, or just talking? If the latter, RONR has nothing to say about it.

[Rob Elsman]

Nothing in RONR prohibits groups of members of an executive board from getting together to discuss matters of common interest.

[Atul Kapur]

12 hours ago, Deb Parm said:

The members of one of the countries decided to hold a meeting regarding fund-raising but did not include the International President or the Chair of the Philanthropy Committee or any of the members of that committee. Is this allowable?

 

10 hours ago, Joshua Katz said:

for RONR purposes, a meeting means business can be conducted. Were they conducting business on behalf of the organization, or just talking?

To reinforce Mr. Katz's point, did they purport to take any decisions (= conduct business) in the name of the organization? If so, problem.
If not, it's just talk, so no problem.

[Guest Puzzling]

11 hours ago, Atul Kapur said:

 

To reinforce Mr. Katz's point, did they purport to take any decisions (= conduct business) in the name of the organization? If so, problem.
If not, it's just talk, so no problem.

What if the talk is about business to be decided in a executive session and others can hear it? 

Also it can be ruled by sunshine laws to prohibit backroom dealing (but this is only for public and semi-public bodies)

[Richard Brown]

23 minutes ago, Guest Puzzling said:

What if the talk is about business to be decided in a executive session and others can hear it? 

If it wasn’t an official meeting in executive session and isn’t disclosing what took place in an executive session it does not violate any rules in RONR regarding executive sessions. Besides,  we are told that the discussion was about fundraising. That doesn’t really sound like typical executive session type  discussions. 

23 minutes ago, Guest Puzzling said:

Also it can be ruled by sunshine laws to prohibit backroom dealing (but this is only for public and semi-public bodies)

I’m at a loss as to why you are bringing executive sessions and sunshine (open meetings) laws into this. There is no indication that either is applicable. 

 

[Atul Kapur]

2 hours ago, Guest Puzzling said:

What if the talk is about business to be decided in a executive session and others can hear it? 

This is such a different question from what the OP asked that I suggest you should have started a new thread 😊

I added to Mr. Katz's answer to emphasize the important facts that would help the OP determine if something improper had been done. I didn't try to imagine new scenarios beyond the information given.