Procedure & legality

[Guest Cool_Hand]

I am writing regarding my organizations constitution and what I believe are violations of it and procedure in a meeting that took place recently that unfairly removed a member.

Our constitution states

1. "that in order to call a meeting the secretary must provide notice 5 days prior".

The accused member was given 6 hours notice.

2. "that a vote to remove a member requires a 2/3rds majority".

No one involved in the vote pointed out to the voting members (several which are new to the board) that it required a 2/3rd majority. There were 7 voting members of which 4 voted yes 1 voted no and 1 abstained. The seventh voting member changed their vote from no to yes because they thought they were on the losing side of a simple majority decision

My questions are these...

was this meeting legally held, and if was not are any votes taken binding?

Was the vote taken "legal and binding" since no voting instructions were given to the members which might have changed the outcome of the voting ?

...and if the were in-proprieties that took place how would one go about re-introducing the matter?

I look forward to and thank you for your answers in advance. If you need more information I will be happy to post it since I was trying to be as short and to the point as I could.

[Rob Elsman]

I am writing regarding my organizations constitution and what I believe are violations of it and procedure in a meeting that took place recently that unfairly removed a member.

Our constitution states

1. "that in order to call a meeting the secretary must provide notice 5 days prior".

The accused member was given 6 hours notice.

2. "that a vote to remove a member requires a 2/3rds majority".

No one involved in the vote pointed out to the voting members (several which are new to the board) that it required a 2/3rd majority. There were 7 voting members of which 4 voted yes 1 voted no and 1 abstained. The seventh voting member changed their vote from no to yes because they thought they were on the losing side of a simple majority decision

My questions are these...

was this meeting legally held, and if was not are any votes taken binding?

Was the vote taken "legal and binding" since no voting instructions were given to the members which might have changed the outcome of the voting ?

...and if the were in-proprieties that took place how would one go about re-introducing the matter?

I look forward to and thank you for your answers in advance. If you need more information I will be happy to post it since I was trying to be as short and to the point as I could.

A bylaw requiring the mailing of the call of a meeting a certain number of days in advance is not suspendable, and an improperly-called meeting is an illegal meeting at which there are no legal voters. All business transacted is null and void.

[hmtcastle]

My questions are these . . . was this meeting legally held, and if was not are any votes taken binding?

You mention board members. Was this a meeting of the board? If so, then only board members needed to be notified. Was the accused a board member? Do you bylaws give your board the authority to discipline members?

[Guest Cool_Hand]

You mention board members. Was this a meeting of the board? If so, then only board members needed to be notified. Was the accused a board member? Do you bylaws give your board the authority to discipline members?

Yes it was a board meeting, yes the accused was a board member and no one had more than 6 hours notice. DIscipline is only addressed in our constitution as I noted previously and nothing additional is in our by-laws.

Thanks

[Guest Nancy N.]

I think Rob's post is dispositive, even though it's beside the point. I like what he's likely to say next, it involves knitting.