Number of people required to approve minutes and adjourn?

[Guest Daniel]

So I'm going to be the presiding officer of an assembly starting a month from now, and I was wondering how the approval of minutes and adjournment of meetings are typically done.

Is it a simple majority to approve minutes/adjourn that's required?

Thanks in advance

[George Mervosh]

See RONR, pp. 343-344. Once corrections, if any, are dealt with, you declare the minutes approved without a vote.

As for adjourning, a motion adopted by majority vote will do it, or when you've made sure no one has any further business to bring before the assembly, you can simply state that fact and adjourn the meeting.

[Rob Elsman]

So I'm going to be the presiding officer of an assembly starting a month from now, and I was wondering how the approval of minutes and adjournment of meetings are typically done.

Is it a simple majority to approve minutes/adjourn that's required?

Thanks in advance

The approval of the minutes is handled by unanimous consent. After any proposed corrections have been handled, the chair simply announces that the minutes are approved as read, or as corrected, as the case may be. See RONR (10th ed.), p. 343.

If all the business has been gone through, the chair can adjourn the meeting without a motion or vote; otherwise, a motion to Adjourn requires a majority vote. See RONR (10th ed.), pp. 228, 232, 233.

[George Mervosh]

Oh, and if you don't have a copy of the big book, or even if you do, run immediately to the bookstore or order online RONR, In Brief. http://www.robertsrules.com/book.html

[Rob Elsman]

Oh, and if you don't have a copy of the big book, or even if you do, run immediately to the bookstore or order online RONR, In Brief. http://www.robertsrules.com/book.html

Since the poster will be presiding, a copy of RONR should be at hand during all meetings.

[George Mervosh]

Since the poster will be presiding, a copy of RONR should be at hand during all meetings.

Baby steps won't hurt and he can read In Brief twice in one night. I hope he's not tempted to start paging through the big book since it's on hand and I've never once had it with me when presiding. Go figure.

[Rev Ed]

To adjourn the meeting, somthing like this will do: "If there is no other business (pause for someone to indicate that he/she wishes the floor), the meeting is adjourned."

[Shmuel Gerber]

I hope he's not tempted to start paging through the big book since it's on hand and I've never once had it with me when presiding. Go figure.

Sure you did, but it was in the form of gray matter rather than a physical book with biliously yellow covers. :-)

[J. J.]

Sure you did, but it was in the form of gray matter rather than a physical book with biliously yellow covers. :-)

I wouldn't be too sure about that. George was a leader long before he was a parliamentarian.

[Trina]

Since the poster will be presiding, a copy of RONR should be at hand during all meetings.

Read another way, this sounds like the poster is such a doofus that the assembly had better have RONR at its collective fingertips at all times .

I know it wasn't intended that way, but there is something funny about the declaration that a copy of THE BOOK should be present at all meetings.

Maybe it's because I imagine putting a copy on the table in front of me at the meetings I typically attend; my fellow members already think I'm sort of a crank for my very occasional references to what it says in Robert's Rules ("well, what's the harm in taking a vote by e-mail...??" ..... "no, my motion isn't open to amendment -- take it or leave it... what do you mean, we can't do that??" ..... "why can't we elect co-presidents if we want to -- we've done it before??" ..... and so forth). Pointing to THE BOOK and quoting chapter and verse would not be very effective (and this is in organizations where most of the members are courteous, have the good of the organization at heart, and are generally law-abiding and inclined to follow the rules they understand).

Maybe "suggestions for inexperienced presiding officers" (RONR pp. 438-440) should be accompanied by a section of "suggestions for dealing with the inexperienced assembly." Well, maybe in the 12th edition (not holding my breath, obviously) .

In support of Mr. Elsman's dictum, I do see, on p. 435:

'At each meeting... the presiding officer should have at hand:

*a copy of the bylaws and other rules of the organization;

* a copy of its parliamentary authority (that is, this book, if it is prescribed in the bylaws);

* ....'

[Gary c Tesser]

A couple thoughts on this.

As to having the 800-page elephant weighing down one side of your desk. (I've told this story before, so I'll try to channel the brief version.) I was a fairly new president (took office in January, this story occurring around November, but I hadn't learned much), with a fairly inexperienced Parliamentari-slash- Sgt.-at.-Arms (yeah) sitting next to me. A measure was under consideration, opposed by no one but the club power monger (let's call him "Stuart," since most people do,), so it was a furiously contentious debate. Come time for the vote, Stuart demanded a roll-call vote, which, he proclaimed, is the right of any member. The parliamentarian and I exchanged uneasy glances, as the secretary irritably tossed his pen down, suspecting, probably right, that part of Stuart's motive was to vex him for not falling into line. "I think I do remember something like that" I murmured to Paul, who confessed he didn't know. So I mollified Bill, got him to pick up his pen and start listing all the members in the room.

Now, if I or Paul had had the brains to pick up my copy of RONR (9th Ed.: this was 1992), we could have found "roll-call vote" in the index, turned to the entry, and immediately seen that Stuart, as we should have known by then, had it backwards, which just happened to coincide with inconveniencing everyone who disagreed with him. (While there are a few things which must be done upon demand of a single member, or even married, roll-call is not one of them; indeed, roll-call must be ordered by a majority vote, and, anyway, is inappropriate for many circumstances, including this one.) Bill would barely have gotten a couple of members' names written, we'd have let him off and possibly exposed Stuart's shenanigans (though probably not, he was always smarter than the rest of us combined).

Which is to say, having the book there can be indispensable. Assuming you got the sense to open it.

(Nuts, I don't think that was the brief version.)

2. When the assembly is inexperienced, standard forms might need help. (The most egregious example, in my view, is a "point of information," which, when risen to, is invited by the chair's saying, "the member will STATE the point" -- nowhere indicating to the uninitiated that what has begun is the ASKING OF A QUESTION.) For example, the second time that I rose and said, "point of order," expecting that the chair would properly invite me to point out a rule that I thought was being violated, but instead he referred my point of order to one of my nether body parts, I learned. After that, to inform the assembled, I would rise and say seamlessly, "Point of order: this violates the rights of all the members here, and the rule that protects those rights." I did get some headway, and some support.

Similarly, when chairing, and I had found that some members would declare "point of order" so as to start an endless rant, I learned to respond with, "State your point of order, being sure to SPECIFY what rule that protects the rights of the members is being violated right now!"

(Oh I used to be here to calm down. But the Illegitemi have carborundummed me. I'm goin out for a walk. NYT article says exercise burns serotonin. That might be my oversimplification. Or worse, like my understanding of the bottom of p. 273 a couple months ago.)