Required Meeting Notice

[Richard Brown]

22 hours ago, Guest Rodd said:

The chair ruled the Point of Order not well taken for two reasons. 

A. The point of order regarding the call notice was not timely as it had to be raised at the beginning of the meeting and it was too late at the beginning of New Business. 

B. The bylaws give the board authority to decide how the call notice is sent since under the the duties of the communications committee it says the committee is to send the call notice as directed by the BOD. 
 

 

22 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

Well, reason A appears to be incorrect, but reason B may or may not be correct, depending upon exactly what all relevant provisions in your bylaws say in this regard. 

 

Reason B appears to me to be incorrect as well, unless there is a provision in the bylaws or a special rule of order which permits all notices to be sent via email. RONR is clear that notices may be sent via email only to those members who have consented to receive notice by email. The board of directors and the communications committee have no authority to simply ignore that provision.

I suspect what is at play here is that the members of this organization simply do not want to require that any notices be sent via regular postal mail and they want to treat Email as sufficient.

Therefore, I agree with Mr. Martin when he suggested  that it seems what this assembly would really prefer is a bylaw provision or a special rule of order that permits all notices to be sent via email.

Edited to add: as an alternative, this society might prefer a provision that permits all notices to be sent via email except when a member specifically opts out of receiving notices by email and requests notices be sent by regular postal mail. 

Edited July 28, 2021 at 02:18 PM by Richard Brown
Added last paragraph

[Dan Honemann]

47 minutes ago, Richard Brown said:

Reason B appears to me to be incorrect as well, unless there is a provision in the bylaws or a special rule of order which permits all notices to be sent via email. RONR is clear that notices may be sent via email only to those members who have consented to receive notice by email. The board of directors and the communications committee have no authority to simply ignore that provision.

As you have noted, the board of directors and the communications committee have whatever authority is conferred upon them by the bylaws. We have yet to be told what the bylaws say about the communication committee's duties. Apparently something in the bylaws relating to this committee's duties is what the Chair relied upon for his ruling, which was then affirmed on appeal.  

My guess is that the chair has read the bylaws in their entirety, which is something I have not done, and so I'm not prepared to say that his ruling was wrong.

[Guest Rodd]

11 hours ago, Daniel H. Honemann said:

As you have noted, the board of directors and the communications committee have whatever authority is conferred upon them by the bylaws. We have yet to be told what the bylaws say about the communication committee's duties. 

Under annual meeting:

“The time and place shall be determined by the Board of Directors. The official call shall be distributed to all members at least thirty (30) days prior to the meeting.” 

Under the duties of the communications committee:

“Provide the official call to the membership at the direction of the Board of Directors.”

[Guest Rodd]

Sorry for the giant lettering. Don’t know how that happened.