Can you recind a motion passed

[Guest Eve reid]

In a recent board meeting a motion was made to appoint 2 committee chairs. which is a duty of the board provided for in the Constitution. The motion was seconded discussed at length and passed. Some of the membership is not happy with the boards choice. Once a motion is passed and in this case the persons appointed have been notified can it be recinded?

[Rob Elsman]

In a recent board meeting a motion was made to appoint 2 committee chairs. which is a duty of the board provided for in the Constitution. The motion was seconded discussed at length and passed. Some of the membership is not happy with the boards choice. Once a motion is passed and in this case the persons appointed have been notified can it be recinded?

Yes, this is a motion to Rescind or Amend Something Previously Adopted. See RONR (10th ed.), §35, pp. 293ff, for all the details, especially the special vote requirements to adopt it.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

In a recent board meeting a motion was made to appoint 2 committee chairs ...

It is not proper to appoint TWO CHAIRMEN to a SINGLE committee.

RONR says that this creates "impossible dilemmas."

Or, did you mean to imply, "... two chairmen to two committees (and, not two chairmen to the SAME committee)?

That's okay.

... which is a duty of the board provided for in the Constitution. The motion was seconded discussed at length and passed.

Okay. Your constitution says that the board has such authority. So the appointments are official.

(Either way, single or double.)

Some of the membership is not happy with the boards choice.

Q. Once a motion is passed and in this case the persons appointed have been notified can it be rescinded?

"... membership is not happy ..."?

So, your implied parliamentary question is, "Can the general membership, who is unhappy with the board's choice(s), override a committee appointment approved by the board, where your Constitution grants your board the power to appoint such a chairmen to such committee(s)?"

The generic answer is "Yes." - RONR says that a board is an inferior body (namely, a board is an "instrumentality") to the superior general membership.

But the specific answer is, "It depends." - Your constitution or your bylaws, may or may not have granted exclusive control to your board on this issue, (or on all issues, for that matter).

If your constitution/bylaws have granted any authority at all to a board, then there is always a chance that the wording of your constitution/bylaws implies superior control over the inferior general membership, via the exclusivity of power over a given issue or area.

So, now you know the generic, default answer.

But someone will have to read your constitution to see if the constitution's grant of authority has made this committee appointment power exclusive to the board, and thus exclusive from the general membership.

Alternatively:

The board itself, as the body who did the original adopting, is free to amend or rescind whatever it adopted, within limits.

Committee chairmanships have no fixed term of office. As such, the appointments can be rescinded. Personnel can be swapped in/swapped out, of any committee, via ordinary motions (which follow the rules for "Amend Something Previously Adopted"), assuming no fixed term of office.

[Guest beverlyf]

Our club set up a special committee to make changes in our constu and bylaws..........of course voted on by our membership. The committee has done nothing................no reports, no contacts with each other regarding their involvement on the committee what so ever............as commodore, chairman, president do I have the power to discharge a committee?

[hmtcastle]

as commodore, chairman, president do I have the power to discharge a committee?

Whoever established the committee has the authority to recall or re-populate it.

[Tim Wynn]

"... membership is not happy ..."?

So, your implied parliamentary question is, "Can the general membership, who is unhappy with the board's choice(s), override a committee appointment approved by the board, where your Constitution grants your board the power to appoint such a chairmen to such committee(s)?"

However, Eve Reid's post reads, "Some of the membership is not happy..." Which may be implying this question, "Doesn't the board have to listen to the members?"

The answer would be that the board does have to conform to the collective will of the members, as expressed through action of the assembly, but it does not have to bend to individual members.