Motions

[Guest Doris D.]

SITUATION: Draft of 7/08/2023 meeting minutes were emailed to entire membership for review prior to next meeting. Draft copies were distributed at 10/14/2023 meeting, where a motion was passed to waive reading/review of the minutes.

QUESTION: Does the 10/14/2023 motion imply that all actions, including motions, reported in the 7/08/2023 minutes stand as reported?

[Joshua Katz]

The question is based on a misconception. All motions/actions take effect as soon as they are passed. They do not wait for the minutes to be approved. The language is that stated by the chair in putting the question; the minutes are simply a record. 

However, there is the question whether the minutes were approved here, and are therefore official records of the proceedings. Again, if not, it doesn't negate the motions, but it is something that will need to be done. RONR specifies that a motion to waive the reading of the minutes simply delays approving them. However, the precise wording matters. If the motion was to skip reading them and approve them, then they are approved. Do you have the precise wording of that motion available?

For future reference, if the draft minutes are distributed, they need not be read except on demand, and so a motion to skip reading them is not needed. Additionally, no motions relating to approval are needed - the chair simply calls for corrections, and once are all dealt with, declares the minutes approved.

[Gary Novosielski]

On 1/2/2024 at 10:58 AM, Guest Doris D. said:

SITUATION: Draft of 7/08/2023 meeting minutes were emailed to entire membership for review prior to next meeting. Draft copies were distributed at 10/14/2023 meeting, where a motion was passed to waive reading/review of the minutes.

QUESTION: Does the 10/14/2023 motion imply that all actions, including motions, reported in the 7/08/2023 minutes stand as reported?

A motion to dispense with the reading/approval of minutes puts them aside temporarily but they still must be approved.  Any minutes that have not yet been approved come up for approval automatically at the next meeting, handled in chronological order.  Simply ignoring them is not an option.

None of this affects the validity of any actions taken at past meetings whatsoever, whether recorded or not. If they were not properly recorded, a correction to the minutes should be offered when they are up for approval.

Motions that are duly adopted take effect the moment the chair announces their adoption, unless they contain a proviso with a later effective date.

[Josh Martin]

On 1/2/2024 at 9:58 AM, Guest Doris D. said:

SITUATION: Draft of 7/08/2023 meeting minutes were emailed to entire membership for review prior to next meeting. Draft copies were distributed at 10/14/2023 meeting, where a motion was passed to waive reading/review of the minutes.

QUESTION: Does the 10/14/2023 motion imply that all actions, including motions, reported in the 7/08/2023 minutes stand as reported?

The actions adopted at the July 8, 2023 meeting are effective regardless of what happens with the minutes. The purpose of approving the minutes is to confirm they are an accurate and complete record of what happened at the meeting. It has nothing to do with the validity of the motions contained in the minutes.

I'm somewhat unclear on what happened at the 10/14 meeting following the motion to "waive" review. Did the organization choose to approve the minutes without reading and reviewing them (which seems fine, since they were distributed in advance), or did the organization choose to postpone the approval of the minutes to a later time? If the latter, the minutes should be approved at the next meeting. In any event, however, all of the actions taken at the July 8 meeting are valid.

Edited January 3, 2024 at 03:18 PM by Josh Martin