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liz

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Recently someone told me that Roberts Rules has done away with the Excutive Board and now it is just an Executive Committee is this true and if so what decisions are they entitled to make?

It's not true but . . .

You have no board unless your bylaws say so and you have no executive committee unless your bylaws say so. So RONR doesn't establish either one, it's up to each organization to do so. Or not. And if you do have a board and/or an executive committee, they have only the authority your bylaws give them. There is no "default" authority given by RONR.

Note that RONR describes the executive committee as "a board within a board". If you have an unusually large board, you might want to also have a (smaller) executive committee. But you don't necessarily need either.

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Liz:

I don't know if RONR can be said to have "done away with" the term executive board, but it does suggest that a sub-group of the board with authority to act should be called an executive committee, so as to minimize any confusion between the two groups (i.e., so you don't have to distinguish between the board and the executive board). An executive committee must be established and defined in your bylaws as to its members and what authority it has.

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(i.e., so you don't have to distinguish between the board and the executive board).

Actually, "board" and "executive board" are two names for the same body (pp. 464-465). Other possible names are board of directors and board of trustees.

I would suggest avoiding the use of "executive board" so as not to confuse it with the executive committee (if there is one). It's bad enough that there's such a thing as an executive session.

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Recently someone told me that Roberts Rules has done away with the Excutive Board and now it is just an Executive Committee is this true and if so what decisions are they entitled to make?

This is not true. RONR uses the terms Executive Board and Executive Committee. In an assembly which has only one small board, the body may be referred to as the Executive Board. Some organizations with larger boards also have a "board within a board" which is called an Executive Committee. In such a case, the larger board is typically referred to as the Board of Directors. The existence and powers of any of these groups would be defined within your organization's Bylaws.

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As opposed to "channeling" the parliamentary laws of nature?

Well, it's not quite as mystical as that, but the traditional approach of the RONR Authorship Team has been to codify the common parliamentary law as it exists today, not to create a system of parliamentary law based upon their own personal opinions of how assemblies should operate. I suspect this is why Mr. Honemann gets so wrathful when someone suggests what RONR should say. :)

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Well, it's not quite as mystical as that, but the traditional approach of the RONR Authorship Team has been to codify the common parliamentary law as it exists today, not to create a system of parliamentary law based upon their own personal opinions of how assemblies should operate. I suspect this is why Mr. Honemann gets so wrathful when someone suggests what RONR should say. :)

It would be like someone lobbying Isaac Newton to change his Second Law of Motion so it would be easier to push things around.

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It would be like someone lobbying Isaac Newton to change his Second Law of Motion so it would be easier to push things around.

It would be like no such thing. Motions requiring a two-thirds vote could as easily have required a three-fourths vote. And the default quorum could as easily have been two-thirds rather than a majority. And there could just as easily be no such animal as a motion to reconsider.

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It would be like no such thing. Motions requiring a two-thirds vote could as easily have required a three-fourths vote. And the default quorum could as easily have been two-thirds rather than a majority. And there could just as easily be no such animal as a motion to reconsider.

Well, someone could write a parliamentary authority with such rules in place, but it wouldn't be RONR. I agree, however, that Mr. Novosielski's analogy is a bit of a stretch, but I suspect it was intended primarily for humorous effect.

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