Establiishing a quorum

[westphals]

Our unincorporated club of around 130 members has an executive board of 4. Since the 1980s,it has not had a quarum requirement. It has just arbitrarily established a quarum of 20 to do business at a regular meeting. Is this appropriate?

[George Mervosh]

No.

"In any other deliberative assembly with enrolled membership whose bylaws do not specify a quorum, the quorum is a majority of all the members." RONR, p. 335

[Weldon Merritt]

Our unincorporated club of around 130 members has an executive board of 4. Since the 1980s,it has not had a quarum requirement. It has just arbitrarily established a quarum of 20 to do business at a regular meeting. Is this appropriate?

Actually, you do have a quorum requirment. If your bylaws do not establish a different quorum, your quorum is a majority (i.e., more than half) of the members. (For 130 members, that would be 66.) You cannot arbitrarily establish a different quorum; it must be in your bylaws or you are stuck with the default (majority).

[tctheatc]

Our unincorporated club of around 130 members has an executive board of 4. Since the 1980s,it has not had a quarum requirement. It has just arbitrarily established a quarum of 20 to do business at a regular meeting. Is this appropriate?

Maybe stupid questions on my part, but I'm learning never to take anything for granted.

Is RONR designated in your bylaws as authoritative where appropriate?

was there a different quorum requirement prior to the 80's?

[Weldon Merritt]

Maybe stupid questions on my part, but I'm learning never to take anything for granted.

Is RONR designated in your bylaws as authoritative where appropriate?

was there a different quorum requirement prior to the 80's?

Not a stupid question at all. But even if the bylaws do not adopt RONR as the parliamentary authority, IMO the default quorum still would be a majority under the common parliamentary law.

[Gary Novosielski]

No.

"In any other deliberative assembly with enrolled membership whose bylaws do not specify a quorum, the quorum is a majority of all the members." RONR, p. 335

But it's possible that the "arbitrary requirement" of 20 is included in the bylaws. Do we know it's not?

[George Mervosh]

But it's possible that the "arbitrary requirement" of 20 is included in the bylaws. Do we know it's not?

Of course not, but the "no" was to "arbitrarily" establishing a quorum, and the citation speaks for itself. So is there something I posted you disagree with?

[Gary Novosielski]

Of course not, but the "no" was to "arbitrarily" establishing a quorum, and the citation speaks for itself. So is there something I posted you disagree with?

Not at all.

It's just that I can envision an OP mistakenly considering a bylaws requirement to be "arbitrary" because it was a fixed number of members rather than a function or fraction of the total number of enrolled members when, in fact, such a requirement might be perfectly appropriate.

[tctheatc]

I can, too.

[Weldon Merritt]

But it's possible that the "arbitrary requirement" of 20 is included in the bylaws. Do we know it's not?

I suppose BirchbahyBill might be ignorant of his organziation's bylaws (wouldn't be the first one), but I took him at his word when he said, "Since the 1980s,it has not had a quarum requirement." Of course, as I earlier pointed out, it does have a quorum requirment, but apparently not stated in the bylaws.

[tctheatc]

Weldon, I'm not suggesting we take him at anything less than his word. He said since the 80's they'd had no requirement. OK. But the next statement that "it has just established" a requirement of 20 could mean different things. It could mean someone declared 20. It could mean there's consideration of a motion to amend the bylaws. It could even mean the bylaws have (now) a requirement of 20. Does "arbitrarily" refer to the manner in which the 20 was applied/declared/shouted out at passersby, or the manner n which it was calculated before putting into bylaws? Who knows?

And what if RONR is not their applicable authority and instead the bylaws state their executive board shall establish their own rules of procedure? I've seen that line written into bylaws. I'm still unclear on his exact situation.

[Weldon Merritt]

I'm still unclear on his exact situation.

I suppose we all are; but I have found that it usually is not particularly productive to try to second guess what someone really means. The me, "have not had" implies "still do not have." It seems to me that if there was a written requirement somewhere, BirchbayBill wodul have said do.

[Josh Martin]

And what if RONR is not their applicable authority and instead the bylaws state their executive board shall establish their own rules of procedure?

Since the question is about a meeting of the general membership, not a meeting of the board, a rule granting the Executive Board the authority to establish its own rules of procedure would not be relevant. Additionally, since this is a forum regarding the discussion of proper procedure under the rules of RONR, we generally assume that an assembly has adopted RONR as its parliamentary authority (or at least considers it highly persuasive) unless the poster suggests otherwise.

As for your other concern, I find it unlikely that "arbitrarily established" means that the organization properly amended its Bylaws, but in the event that it does, such a provision would indeed supersede the rules of RONR, regardless of how arbitrary the decision may have been.

[tctheatc]

Since the question is about a meeting of the general membership, not a meeting of the board,

As I read it, it's a question about a decision of the board.

[hmtcastle]

As I read it, it's a question about a decision of the board.

As I read it, the board was mentioned as an aside and is not relevant to the question. Unless the "it" that did the arbitrary establishing is the board.

[Weldon Merritt]

As I read it, the board was mentioned as an aside and is not relevant to the question. Unless the "it" that did the arbitrary establishing is the board.

Since the question metioned a board of 4, and an "arbitrarily established" quorum of 20, it seems pretty obvious that the question is not about the board's quorum.

[hmtcastle]

Since the question metioned a board of 4, and an "arbitrarily established" quorum of 20, it seems pretty obviosu that the question is about the board's quorum.

Is there a "not" missing?

I agree that the quorum is not the board's quorum, there just seems to be some confusion about who arbitrarily established it at 20. The ATC thinks it might be the board's decision. I'm not so sure.

[hmtcastle]

Is there a "not" missing?

Well, not anymore.

[Josh Martin]

As I read it, it's a question about a decision of the board.

It may (although I certainly hope not) be a question about a decision of the board, but it is clearly a question regarding meetings of the general membership, as it makes no sense to establish a quorum of 20 for a board of four. A hypothetical Bylaw allowing the Executive Board to make its own rules of procedure would not be sufficient to authorize the Executive Board to make rules of procedure for the general membership.

If it is a question about a decision of the board, I also find it even more unlikely that "arbitrarily established" means the Bylaws were properly adopted, as the authority to amend the Bylaws is generally reserved for the general membership in any society which has a general membership.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

Our unincorporated club of around 130 members has an executive board of 4.

Since the 1980s,it has not had a quarum requirement.

It has just arbitrarily established a quorum of 20 to do business at a regular meeting.

Is this appropriate?

Until BirchbayBill confirms that the "... arbitrarily established ..." quorum is "arbitrary" because either _____:

(a.) the quorum number was "established" when they amended the bylaws;

(b.) the quorum number is a silent Gentlemen's Agreement among equals;

(c.) the quorum number is a willy-nilly notion plucked out of the aether that, like the little girl Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin, "just growed", and got stuck in people's brains, for no good reason, like a bad meme;

... we cannot answer the question about it being "appropriate" or not.

[tctheatc]

Bottom line, this original post (as is the case with many, seems to me) is not as obvious as to its intent as some might think. That was my point some posts back. It's a bit frustrating that the original poster often doesn't come back to clarify. Perhaps the deal went down and the question became moot.

[George Mervosh]

Bottom line, this original post (as is the case with many, seems to me) is not as obvious as to its intent as some might think. That was my point some posts back. It's a bit frustrating that the original poster often doesn't come back to clarify. Perhaps the deal went down and the question became moot.

Happens all the time.....most of the time it's best to just literally answer the questions asked without all of the "if you mean", "if you are referring to" caveats. You'll be far less frustrated that way

(I'm not criticizing anyone's answer here, or attempt to solicit additional information though.)